It is with utmost humility that I pen this message as the 29th president of Sri Lanka College of Radiologists. I have chosen the theme “Work together to Enlighten the field of Radiology.” for this year. Sri Lanka College of Radiologists started its journey in 1980 and had been through ups and downs during a long history of 42 years to 2022. Our membership has increased from 07 to 324 by now. During the past 42 years, 28 presidents have done immense work to develop the field of Radiology and to achieve recognition in national and international levels. I make this an opportunity to thank and express gratitude to all the past presidents who have gone through many hardships for the betterment of the Radiology field.

In 2022, we are hopefully recovering from the COVID pandemic which affected the whole world and made all the societies like ours having difficulties. It is a challenging time to all the fields including Radiology. So, we have to work hard to build up ourselves to achieve our current targets.

As you all know, the fastest developing field of medicine is Radiology because of the rapid development of medical technology. All the fields of medicine are greatly depended upon imaging which means diagnostic and the therapeutic Radiology. I feel humbly proud to be a member of esteemed team. It is mandatory to maintain international standards to achieve the confidence of our colleagues, referring clinicians for which we must update our knowledge and skills. Continuous Medical Education plays a major role in improving our knowledge and skills. So, my council and I have already planned to perform many academic events throughout the year and our major academic event, the annual academic sessions at the end of my tenure.

I believe that it is a requirement, responsibility and obligation of all the members and trainees to participate in all the academic events and gather the knowledge and skills to provide good quality Radiological services to our community.

Though many past presidents have already emphasized, attempted and succeeded to introduce the sub specialties to our field, there is more work to be done by me and my council. I will strongly hope to work on developing sub specialties during my year.

As a Radiologist who has worked hard for 17 long years in various parts of the country, I know the problems faced by peripheral Radiologists better, mainly the lack of basic required Radiological equipment. I will try to encourage the ministry of Health on this matter though the financial crisis existing in the country that will make it difficult.

Other major problem in the field of Radiology is the maldistribution of Radiologists to appropriate stations and needy stations. My council and I will work to regularize the annual transfers and end post advertisements according to the needs of the country.

Finally, though I have big hopes operations to be in progress, no one can’t do miracles and can’t do anything alone. So, I humbly request all council members, all colleagues and teachers to help me and let’s work together to achieve at least majority of our targets. I wish you good luck, a happy and prosperous future.

Dr. W. A. Dileep Karunaratne
The President- Sri Lanka College of Radiologists
Consultant Radiologist
Email – drdileep2003@gmail.com