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Basseterre, St. Kitts, November 10, 2020 (SKNIS): St. Kitts and Nevis joined the global community to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Discovery of Radiation, which dates as far back as 1895.

World Radiography Day or the International Day of Radiology, which was discovered on November 08, 1985, was observed under the theme: “Elevating Patient Care with Artificial Intelligence.” In St. Kitts and Nevis, the day was celebrated with an open day at the Joseph Nathaniel France (JNF) General Hospital on Monday, November 09, aimed at helping the general public to see and understand the work radiologists, radiographers and other professionals within the field do.

“Today, we wanted to bring more awareness to what we do here, and we decided we would take people through almost like a time capsule where we came from and where we are headed to. So, we began with the discover section where X-rays were initially discovered in 1985. Then we improved upon what we did, moving into film and automatic processing,” said Clariscia Nata, Senior Radiographer at JNF. “Afterwards, we advanced into computerized radiography and then digital radiography.”

Ms. Natta noted that World Radiography or Radiology Day is of significant importance as much have been achieved since its inception.

“Since the discovery of radiation in 1895, radiology has advanced to not only diagnosing but treating, and we have now expanded our reach into CT- which is computerized tomography, ultrasound, MRI and now digital radiography,” said Ms. Natta.

She said that artificial intelligence plays an important role in radiology.

“In moving forward, we want to try to elevate what we already have and in order for us to do this we have to involve artificial intelligence… which reduces human error, radiation exposure and the need for unnecessary X-rays,” she said. “With artificial intelligence, what they intend to do is to make the process more efficient, so patients won’t have to wait for reports. Information coming back and diagnosis won’t be delayed, and radiologist burn out would be lower because the information systems would be able to read more images and reduce the error to a minimum.”

Some of the equipment on display were telemedicine, digital portable X-ray machines and portable ultrasounds. Ms. Natta said that the portable ultrasound machines proved very useful in the CODVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to the open day, a virtual seminar was held on Monday night on the topic: “The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Imagining”. The featured speaker was Professor Dr. Ricardo Neil, Founder and Chairman of the St. Kitts and Nevis Robotics Association.