“Patient Care in Radiology”—The Staff's Perspective

The aim of this study was to research how the staff experience care expressed during the brief encounter with the patients in a diagnostic imaging department. This was a qualitative study with a phenomenological and hermeneutical frame of reference. The data were collected using field observations and semistructured interviews and analyzed according to the guidelines for meaning condensation by Giorgi. The imaging staff found that care is expressed in an administrative, an instrumental, and a compassionate sense. The imaging staff perceived care in a way that clearly differs from the traditional perception of care understood as the close relations between people. In their self-understanding, the staff found that care not only comprised the relational aspect but also that it was already delivered during the preparatory phases before the actual meeting with the patient and up until the image was electronically forwarded. And, care expressed in between was perceived as care in the traditional sense and termed as “patient care in radiology.”