A project to define standards for radiology staffing, education and training across the European Union.

The European Union Radiation, Education, Staffing & Training (EU-REST) study was a European Commission-funded, 24-month project that analysed workforce availability, education and training needs to ensure quality and safety aspects of medical applications involving ionising radiation in the EU and developed staffing and education/training guidelines for key professional groups involved in ensuring radiation safety and quality of medical radiation applications in the EU Member States. This article outlines the origin, development, goals and overall structure of the project. CRITICAL RELEVANCE STATEMENT: This article provides a concise overview of the EU-REST project, which analysed the workforce availability of health professionals involved in the use of ionising radiation for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures and the corresponding education and training in radiation protection.

Guidelines and recommendations for radiologist staffing, education and training.

This article outlines the radiology-related staffing and education/training guidelines and recommendations developed by the European Commission-funded EU-REST (European Union Radiation, Education, Staffing & Training) project. The radiologist consortium partners propose the use of hour of machine/system/activity as the basic unit to calculate radiologist staffing needs. Education and training recommendations for radiologists include establishing 5 years as the standard duration of specialty training in radiology and establishing the ESR European Training Curriculum for Radiology as the European-wide standard.