Alumni, radiographers, clinical placement tutors and industry insights about current radiographers practice, competences and autonomy in western Switzerland.

INTRODUCTION: Radiographers' profession is constantly evolving, which demands adaptation of education and training programs to build up medical imaging and radiation therapy professionals (MIRTPs) that provide healthcare to improve patient experience and outcomes. This study aimed to map radiographers' practices, competences, and autonomy level in Western Switzerland. METHODS: Data was collected by 2 cross-sectional online surveys targeting Alumni, radiographers, clinical placement tutors and medical imaging equipment specialists from industry, with opened and closed-end questions. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were used to analyse the data. RESULTS: 81 Alumni and 93 Chief-Radiographers, clinical tutors, practitioner-radiographers and industry answered the questionnaires. The competences considered as the most "acquired or completely acquired" by the Alumni were: adopt a reflective posture on practice (90.1 %; 73/81), adopt ethical behaviour (90.1 %; 73/81), carrying out and providing radiological services for diagnostic, therapeutic and preventive purposes (81.5 %; 68/81), adapting communication to the other surrounding persons (81.5 %; 66/81), and check compliance of procedures with standards (69.1 %; 56/81). Similar results were referred by Employers. The autonomy of the participant radiographers was considered as average, and it focuses only the preparation of the patient and the protocol optimisation. The development and integration of research is weak as well as the application of competences regarding professionalism. CONCLUSIONS: A better link between educational institutions and clinical practice can help on the integration of research and evidence-based on practice, necessary to progress the radiographers' profession in Western Switzerland. The autonomy needs to be further developed and leadership courses must be integrated in the curricula to facilitate the implementation of new approaches to reinforce radiographer's profession. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Practice must be revised to integrate evidence-based; to facilitate research development, the managers need to increase support.

Design and Evaluation of a Novel Haptic Interface for Endoscopic Simulation.

Inspection of the colon with an endoscope for early signs of cancer (colonoscopy) has become an extremely widespread procedure, since early treatment radically improves the outlook of patients. The procedure requires a close coordination between the sense of touch and vision to navigate the endoscope along the colon. This raises the need to develop efficient training methods for physicians. Training simulators based on virtual reality, where realistic graphics are combined with a mechatronic system providing haptic feedback, are alternative to traditional training methods. To provide physicians with realistic haptic sensations of an endoscopic procedure, we have designed a haptic interface, instrumented a clinical endoscope and combined them with a simulation software for colonoscopy. In this contribution, we present the mechatronic components of the simulator. The haptic interface is able to generate high forces using the combination of electrical motors and brakes in a compact design. Experiments were performed to determine the characteristics of the device. A model-based control has been implemented and the results show that the control successfully compensates for the device nonlinearities, such as friction. The proposed haptic interface, together with the virtual reality, form a highly realistic training simulator for endoscopic surgeons, applicable not only to colonoscopy, but also to similar interventions.