Every day on November 8, the world observes World Radiography Day. The day is commemorated to honour the discovery of X-radiation or X-rays on 8 November 1895, by German scientist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen.
Professor Rontgen was a professor of physics at Warburg College in Germany who became the inaugural winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics for this achievement in the year 1901.
The day is annually celebrated to raise awareness about radiographic imaging and therapy, which is a key component in the diagnosis and treatment of patients.
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On this day, radiographers from across the world celebrate the anniversary of the discovery of X-radiation and promote radiography as a career and how radiography is a vital contributor to modern healthcare.
The theme of Radiology Day 2021 is ‘Interventional Radiology- Active Care for Patient’, with the aim to highlight the important role that interventional radiology plays in treating patients.
In 2012, the first World Radiography Day was celebrated with the European Society of Radiology (ESR), Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), and American College of Radiology (ACR) teaming up for the initiative. The predecessor of the day was teh European Day of Radiology which was organised in 2011, February 10 by the ESR to accord with the death anniversary of Wilhelm Rontgen. Professor Rontgen died on February 10, 1923.
The European Day of Radiology, however, was replaced by World Radiography Day on November 8 coinciding with the anniversary of the X-Ray discovery by Rontgen and since then the day is celebrated annually on November 8.
Various organisations across the world mark the day including the UK's Society of Radiographers (SoR) and the Association of Radiographers in Nigeria and others. The Radiographers Association of Madhya Pradesh in India since 1996 has been observing this day when it was suggested by Shivakant Vajpai, the secretary of the organisation.
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Modern radiography is a boon for the patients as the medical process has gone through revolutionary changes as compared to earlier times. With the newer invention of X-Rays, many revolutionary transformations have taken place in the field of medicine. As the use of X-Rays increased, a wide range of diagnostic methods also developed such as Computed Tomography, Mammography, Gamma Camera, Linear Axmccelerator, PET Scan, SPECT now MRI, PET MRI etc. Radiology and Imageology have developed into several branches.