Radiologist of the Month – December 2021

Congratulations Dr. Christoph Agten, you are our Radiologist of the Month for November 2021! Take a minute to read the interview with Dr. Agten and how he uses Collective Minds in radiology education.

What’s your background and how did you find your passion for radiology?

I started my radiology training in 2009 and complete my residency program in Lucerne, Switzerland, and passed the Swiss Radiology Board Exam summa cum laude in 2013, winning the prize for the best exam in that year. After that, I started my musculoskeletal journey with a research and clinical MSK fellowship at the Balgrist University Hospital in Switzerland. This is where I started my academic career. After the MSK fellowship, I set out to do another MSK research fellowship at New York Univesity, USA, with funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss Society of Radiology. I started working as an MSK consultant radiologist after my return to the Balgrist University Hospital for a couple of years, before moving to the UK for family reasons in 2018. In the UK I started as an MSK teleradiologist for several Swiss Hospitals and then started my own company ARISTRA, continuing to provide expert MSK teleradiology for Swiss hospitals and private practices until the present day.

I always liked teaching radiology and since it was not feasible to do so as a teleradiologist I have started my online educational journey in 2019 with a dedicated MSK YouTube channel with currently more than 10’500 subscribers. My channel is supported monthly by over 100 radiologists via Patreon or YouTube Memberships. I self-published a best-selling book “MSK – SPEED – How to report more studies faster” on Amazon. In addition to that at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, I have started 1on1 online coaching in MSK radiology and turned this now into a fully fleshed-out “Virtual MSK Radiology Fellowship” program, with currently 35 enrolled radiologists from literally all over the world. In that “Virtual MSK Radiology Fellowship” program I am using collective minds as a teaching platform.

My passion for radiology comes from solving puzzles. I always found the diagnostic part of medicine the most exciting bit. Also, I was always a tech-savvy person and working on a computer, with images, 3D stuff etc was kind of the logical conclusion. Also, I am partially colour blind, which made it hard for me to see skin rashes and stuff like that – hence radiology.

How did you find out about Collective Minds?

I think through social media. However, I was instantly hooked as I saw the potential of Collective Minds for online teaching!

What’s been your best experience?

I can leverage the platform for my online teaching in the MSK fellowship program and can offer my fellows a secure and safe way to share cases with me without worrying about data protection.

What would you like to see added to the service? Any new features or services?

I would love to see a drawing tool or pencil tool for freehand drawing on the images. (*Editors note, these features are coming within very soon)

Do you believe Collective Minds will make a difference for patients?

Yes, it certainly does. It improves remote learning and teaching for radiologists worldwide that now can access either cases or teachers from other countries and use such newly gained knowledge in their own practice locally. In addition, we all can easily upload our own difficult cases and ask the hive-mind for its opinion, which sometimes can bring new insights in difficult cases.

Thank you so much Christoph for your contribution to the Collective Minds community!