Dr. Sam Hare, the U.K. thoracic radiologist who came to prominence during the pandemic when he called radiographers "the real heroes" and used a plastic cup in a BBC interview to demonstrate how COVID-19 can leave lung damage, was named the new National Specialty Advisor for Imaging for National Health Service (NHS) England on 21 September.
Dr. Sam Hare.Hare is a member of the executive committee of the British Society of Thoracic Imaging and an advisor to the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR). He hopes to get his ambulatory lung biopsy technique adopted within the NHS. He has also helped create a lung biopsy education course called Pulmonary Oncology, Biopsy, and Ablation Symposium (POBAS), and was involved in drafting national radiology protocols to diagnose COVID-19, according to a BBC report posted on 23 June 2020 that contains the much-viewed video clip of the plastic-cup demo.
Hare is a consultant chest radiologist at Barnet Hospital in Hertfordshire, U.K. He referred to radiographers as the real heroes of the pandemic in a May 2020 interview with the University of Cambridge. He one of the lead radiologists for the London Cancer lung pathway board, and runs the ambulatory lung biopsy service at the Royal Free London NHS Trust, which received the inaugural NHS Innovation Challenge Prize for Cancer Care and the BMJ Award for Cancer Care Team of the Year.
The news of Hare's appointment was welcomed by the RCR. In a press release issued on 21 September, RCR President Dr. Jeanette Dickson stated that the society is confident that Hare's experience will be "invaluable in advocating on behalf of the radiology community to shape the future of imaging provision across England."
Dickson added that radiologists in the U.K. are facing a number of challenges, including the need for support from NHS England to properly resource imaging services and to address an imaging backlog that accumulated during the pandemic.
"The RCR is keen to work with Dr. Hare and NHS England to navigate those challenges and changes, and we very much look forward an effective collaboration over the coming year," she stated.
Hare studied at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, and Imperial College School of Medicine. Following a fellowship in thoracic radiology in North America, he served as a consultant thoracic radiologist at the Ottawa Hospital in Canada, where he specialized in complex lung biopsy techniques and lung cancer screening and diagnosis.
