The Pangea Project: ePatient magazine
Executive Summary
Over the past few decades, the medical imaging communities and associations have made an extensive effort to educate their members about radiopharmaceuticals and nuclear medicine scanners. As an end user, the nuclear medicine professional is entirely dependent upon patient referrals from its colleagues. Unfortunately and unlike radiology and cardiology, the nuclear medicine community and nuclear medicine associations/societies have not outreached proactively and consistently to their stakeholders (patients, referring physicians, government agencies, hospitaladministrators….). As a result, the nuclear medicine field has largely remained a self-contained and limited environment that is always struggling to thrive.
About 10 years ago, Dr. François Lamoureux, President of the Quebec Association of Nuclear Medicine, decided to embark into a provincial outreach effort outside the Quebec nuclear medicine community. He started an educational magazine in French called “Le Patient” (htpp://www.lepatient.ca). The basic principle of “Le Patient” is based on the writing of short articles (2-3 pages max) by nuclear medicine professionals that are easily readable/understandable by referring practitioners, health care executives and government agencies personnel. The success of Dr. Lamoureux’s magazine in Quebec is reflected by the clinical strength of nuclear medicine and the number and quality of the nuclear medicine procedures performed in Quebec. For example, the Province of Quebec performs
annually more V/Q scan than most Europeans countries. A few additional factors have also played a significant role in the strength of nuclear medicine in Quebec. One of them is the fact that nuclear medicine physicians practice as true consultant to their colleagues and patients.
The idea behind the Pangea Project is to export to the worldwide NM community the concept of the magazine “Le Patient” and to make current and future nuclear medicine diagnostic tests and therapies known and understandable to prescribing physicians, patients, health authorities and hospital administrators on a global scale. Two years ago, at the start of our bidding campaign to host the 2022 WFNMB congress, we started to talk about this idea to our colleagues in Asia, Europe, and the Americas and to the Nuclear Medicine Industry. Not only did we receive praises and encouragements, we were also told by the nuclear medicine industry that this “niche” endeavor would fill a badly needed tool for the field and the industry.
With the endorsement of most of the large regional associations of nuclear medicine, we are now preparing the 2017 international issues of the magazine in collaboration with the American Society of Nuclear Medicine and colleagues from across the globe. We will have articles in English, French, Spanish and Chinese and, based on request, in a specific language, e.g. polish, for targeting/consumption of a specific country. While the format of the publication of the magazine Le Patient has largely been based on a hard copy in the past, we have moved gradually towards an
electronic platform with easy access and download of the issues on smartphone, tablets, laptops and desktop computers.
We are very excited about this global initiative and hope that you will enjoy sharing the issues of Pangea with your colleagues and friends interested to know more about the benefit of the use of medical isotopes to diagnose and treat diseases.
