Dr. Paola Clauser is to take over from Prof. Luis Martí-Bonmatí as editor in chief of Insights into Imaging, the ESR's open-access journal that has just celebrated its 15th anniversary.
"And so it begins!" she noted on LinkedIn on 3 January 2025. "I am grateful for the opportunity to lead such an important journal and to work together with the amazing team of the ESR journal family. I will do my best to follow in the footsteps of my excellent predecessor and continue supporting valuable clinical research and innovation in radiology."
Dr. Paola Clauser.
Clauser is a radiologist at Vienna General Hospital, Medical University of Vienna, and a board member of the European Society of Breast Imaging (EUSOBI). She co-founded the EUSOBI Young Club with Prof. Katja Pinker-Domenig -- an idea that originally came from Prof. Francesco Sardanelli of the University of Milan.
"You will do it!" Martí-Bonmatí commented on LinkedIn. "Together with the incredible team of authors, reviewers, and deputy editors, the journal's standards of excellence will shine!"
In 2016, when she was in her early 30s, Clauser made a bold career move from Udine, Italy, to Vienna. "The transition was not easy -- sometimes it still isn't. It was not just about moving to a different country, but also from a small university in a small city to one of the biggest universities and hospitals in Europe in a capital city. I really had some hard times in the first few years," she told AuntMinnieEurope.com when she won the Radiology Rising Star award in the 2022 EuroMinnies.
To report in German, Clauser did many months of intensive courses, and she was helped greatly by her colleagues. "The reporting style here is very structured and schematic, which allowed me to learn fast how to write meaningful, understandable reports," she said. "The big challenge was to learn medical terminology and anatomy again. While Latin terms are accepted, German words are more common, and they rarely resemble Latin terms. Improving my German and my reports is still very much a work in progress."
In her editorial posted by Insights into Imaging on 1 January 2025, Clauser revealed that she plans to keep the focus of the journal on high-quality review and educational articles, to refresh basic knowledge but also to facilitate the translation of new methods and technologies into clinical practice.
"Open access publishing can be onerous for authors, but it allows the published work to reach a wider audience that goes beyond academic institutions," she wrote. "The journal will also increase its focus on multidisciplinarity, supporting radiologists in keeping up-to-date with the upcoming novelties outside the field of radiology, complementary to the 'ESR Bridges' series from European Radiology. In addition, Insights into Imaging will further increase its focus on educational, review, and original articles on resource optimization, equity of access to care, and sustainability."
Value-based radiology is an essential part of the aims and scope of the journal, according to Clauser.
"Medicine, in general, but radiology, in particular, is rapidly evolving. Radiology, being based on technology, is probably the field in which fast changes, with AI introduction and fast and continuous development of new radiological devices, are more apparent. These changes could be a beneficial support at a time when the radiologist shortage is becoming apparent in many European countries, particularly in the academic setting," she stated.
Radiologists can only successfully face these challenges by moving out of their reporting rooms. "We are not doctors' doctors, only seeing society through our (admittedly, now often rather colorful) screens. We are clinicians who play a central role in patient management and decision-making, and it is our responsibility to behave as such and train the next generation for this role." Clauser noted.
