SHINE A LIGHT BLOG

Leading a Successful Medical Imaging Department

By Heidi Schmidt, Department Head and Program Medical director of the JDMI, the Joint Department of Medical Imaging

I am the Department Head and Program Medical director of the JDMI, the Joint Department of Medical Imaging. The JDMI is the largest medical imaging department in Canada with more than 90 radiologists working under my leadership.

It feels like I have been entrusted with a huge responsibility and at the same time, a huge opportunity to affect change in healthcare, and together with my team, lead the field of radiology into the next decades in Canada.

In the JDMI, all radiologists are peers — there is no hierarchy and the atmosphere is very collaborative with democratic shared decision making. We thrive form the input of radiologists from different backgrounds: not only do they come from different countries and cultures, they are also at different stages of their career: on the one hand, we have young physicians who are just starting to change the world and on the other hand, we have those who have been practicing for a long time and bring their vast experience to the table.

I always describe our radiologists as “academic curious radiologists”. Each and every single one of them wants to improve the field for better care — here in Toronto, in the province and outside of the country.

Many of our radiologists are renowned researchers in their field, from top to bottom of our bodies they have published from brain diagnostics to novel neurointerventional procedures, they are famous for novel imaging of the body and the musculoskeletal system, the heart and the lungs. They are the first in many areas of functional and molecular imaging, some of them the only ones in the country who perform, and publish about, certain interventional procedures. You will hear from many of them in the upcoming podcasts and audio-visual episodes.

Now, I invite you to learn more about my secrets of leading a successful medical imaging department, the challenges I face and the people who make this journey so rewarding: