Royal College of Radiologists (RCR)

Last revised by Henry Atkinson on 10 Oct 2023

The Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) is the professional body for clinical radiology and clinical oncology in the United Kingdom, and is responsible for their respective curricula and assessment of clinical radiologists and clinical oncologists who wish to gain Fellowship of the College (FRCR).
The current President of the Royal College of Radiologists is Katharine Halliday, a clinical radiologist.
The RCR publishes a monthly scientific journal called Clinical Radiology.

The definite article, "The", is an official part of the name of The Royal College of Radiologists. Colloquially, in the UK, radiologists tend to call the RCR, "the College".

In 1934 approximately one hundred radiologists met and formed The British Association of Radiologists. The first President was James F Brailsford (1881-1961) 2, a radiologist from Birmingham and a world authority on bone radiology. One year later The Society of Radiotherapists of Great Britain and Ireland was established by physicians who employed ionizing radiation and radium in the treatment of disease. 

In 1939, the British Association of Radiologists and The Society of Radiotherapists of Great Britain and Ireland merged to form The Faculty of Radiologists which received its Royal Charter in 1953. The first President was RE Roberts. The Faculty initially had their offices at - but were never part of - the Royal College of Surgeons in London. In 1975 another Royal Charter permitted the name change to The Royal College of Radiologists 1. The first President of the new College (and last President of the Faculty) was Sir Howard Middlemiss.

The modern college is divided into two faculties, the Faculty of Clinical Radiology and Faculty of Clinical Oncology

The Junior Radiologists Forum (JRF) is a committee of the RCR, its purpose is to provide a route of communication between clinical radiology trainees and the Faculty of Clinical Radiology and the College. Each training scheme has an elected JRF representative and there are also 'less than full-time trainee' and 'academic trainee' representatives. A small executive committee is responsible for coordinating the work of the JRF and represents trainees at many other RCR committees, for example, the Specialty Training Board. 

There is also a Junior Oncologists Forum (JOF) which provides an analogous route of communication between the clinical oncology trainees and the Faculty of Clinical Oncology and the College.

1974-75 Sir Howard Middlemiss CMG (1916-1983) 4
1975-77 Eric Craig Easson CBE * (1915-1983) 7
1977-80 Robert E Steiner CBE (1918-2014) 5
1980-83 John William Laws CBE (1921-1999) 8
1983-86 William "Bill" Mackie Ross CBE * (1922-2011) 9
1986-89 E (Eurfil) Rhys Davies CBE
1989-92 J (James) Oscar Max Clark Craig (1927-2020) 6
1992-95 Sir Christopher Hammon Paine, Bt *
1995-98 Michael John Brindle CBE
1998-01 Peter Armstrong
2001-04 Dan Victor Ash *
2004-07 Dame Janet Husband DBE FMedSci
2007-10 Andreas "Andy" Ntinou Adam CBE FMedSci
2010-13 Jane M Barrett OBE *
2013-16 Giles F Maskell
2016-19 Nicola H Strickland 
2019-22 Jeanette Dickson *
2022-25 Katharine Halliday 13

NB: By convention, every third President of the College is a clinical (=radiation) oncologist (indicated by an * above), the first and second Presidents in each of these "three-president cycles" is a radiologist.

The Royal College of Radiologists publishes a monthly scientific journal called Clinical Radiology. It was originally called the Journal of the Faculty of Radiologists and has been in print since 1949.

Since 1989 it has also published a journal called Clinical Oncology, from which time, articles on radiation oncology were no longer accepted by its sister journal, Clinical Radiology 3.

In 2022, it was announced that a new gold open access journal, RCR Open, would launch. It would be web-based and publish articles of both radiological and oncological interest 14

The Royal College of Radiologists awards achievements by its Fellows and others. 

The bequest of E Rohan Williams (1906-1963), who was President of the Faculty of Radiologists at the time of his death 10, established an award, the Rohan Williams Medal, for the highest achieving candidate(s) at the Final FRCR examination, which was first given in 1965. It was awarded annually until 2014, after which time it was replaced by the RCR Gold Award, which has been handed out annually since then 11,12.

Radiologists in the UK have for many years called this the "gold medal", however it has never been called this officially. Indeed the RCR Gold Medal is a bona fide, but completely different, award

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