Doctors
Real life stories
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Name: Patrick Strong
Job title: Consultant radiologist, Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust
I wanted to be a doctor from a very early age. Some of my attraction to the health services was because my mother was a district nurse.
I also had a feeling that being a doctor was a career I would enjoy because I saw it as a career with variety – something it has certainly lived up to – and that it would be interesting because I was attracted to science subjects.
I applied to medical school when I was 17 and in 1969 I started my training. It was while I was a medical student that I became interested in radiology. I found that I really liked the investigative element.
Following jobs as a junior hospital doctor in South Wales I did more senior jobs in Bristol and Plymouth gaining the clinical experience necessary to be an effective radiologist.
I worked as a registrar, then senior registrar in Manchester before taking up my current role in Bolton.
The most satisfying aspect of the job is spotting a subtle sign on an X-ray and coming up with a diagnosis, especially if colleagues have not seen the answer.
Radiology has changed dramatically since I started and I have been able to keep up to date through training. For example, I recently trained for a year in nuclear medicine, one of the newer developments in my hospital.
Radiologists now tend to specialise more than in the past. When I first came to Bolton there were four of us doing more or less the same kind of work, now there are 13 people, with different special interests. Some spend a lot of time concentrating on breast cancer while others concentrate on vascular disease, children, bone disease and other conditions.
