Quality management systems (QMS) in nuclear medicine is an essential component of the Quality program and is instrumental in the safe delivery of a high standard clinical service. The IAEA QUANUM program is a nuclear medicine specific audit program that can be used to assess the standards of a nuclear medicine department and its service delivery. Regular internal and external audits are encouraged as part of the QMS.

Health care and research are increasingly mandating consumer involvement in the planning, design and evaluation of services, quality projects and research. The editorial reviews the Australian progress with accreditation processes in research and provides practical direction in an area that is unfamiliar to many researchers and clinicians.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions is rapidly changing the way radiation therapy tasks, traditionally relying on human skills, are approached by enabling fast automation. This evolution represents a paradigm shift in all aspects of the profession, particularly for treatment planning applications, opening up opportunities but also causing concerns for the future of the multidisciplinary team. In Australia, radiation therapists (RTs), largely responsible for both treatment planning and delivery, are discussing the impact of the introduction of AI and the potential developments in the future of their role. As medical physicists, who are part of the multidisciplinary team, in this editorial we reflect on the considerations of RTs, and on the implications of this transition to AI.

Surface-guided radiation therapy is used widely for chest wall radiation therapy (RT). This paper investigated whether Mepitel, a barrier film commonly used to prevent radiation dermatitis, can impact the accuracy of surface-guided patient setups in chest wall RT by analysing image-guided RT trends. Whilst a statistically significant impact was found, it is unlikely to be clinically significant.

The absence of Quality Management Audits in Nuclear Medicine departments could potentially result in a compromise in the safety and quality of patient care. This study used the International Atomic Energy Agency audit criteria of the Quality Management Audits in Nuclear Medicine programme to evaluate each department's overall conformance in a middle-income African country.

Patients (n = 270) were randomised into three groups to investigate the effect of using celluloid matrix and edible tapes (fruit leather and chewing gum) on reducing the palatoglossal air space shadow error in panoramic imaging. Results showed that the number of error-free images in each group was significantly higher than the control group, with the fruit leather groups having the highest chance of error-free images (9.57 times). The age and gender had no significant effect on the results of interventions.

This study aimed to explore radiography students' perception of the newly developed podcast series as a wellbeing support tool. A mixed methods study was conducted analysing data from listeners, including usage data from the podcast host site, surveys, and focus groups. This study demonstrated students' positive perceptions of a podcast for self-directed engagement with wellbeing topics during clinical placements.

To minimise the risks associated with ionizing radiation, it is necessary for the radiographer to use radiation dose reduction measures. This qualitative study is based on a cross-sectional electronic survey with open-ended questions that were responded by 111 radiographers. The barriers for using dose reduction measures were mainly related to the patient experiencing pain, communication difficulties, and cultural reasons.

This study used document analysis as a methodology to investigate the perspective of radiography science from dissertations in the field of radiography. The perspective was studied through the core concepts, their interrelations and inter-dependencies.

Our results demonstrated that the addition of colour Doppler to routine sonography is helpful in differentiating malignant nodules from benign ones.

The thyroid's effective dose increases with increasing DLP values. A decreasing trend in LAR values is observed with increasing age. The thyroid's mean effective dose and LAR in females are higher than in males because of the higher radiosensitivity of the thyroid gland in females.

Our study proposes an innovative approach to estimate patient dose in pediatric imaging by considering age and scan protocol, utilizing effective dose (ED) and age-specific dose estimate (ASDE). Through the evaluation of three organs across a cohort of over 500 paediatric patients, our method demonstrates robustness and reliability. The results obtained align satisfactorily with the standards set forth in AAPM reports No. 204 and 220, highlighting the method's validity and potential applicability in pediatric radiology practice.

The paper discusses the use of advanced software navigation in interventional oncology for liver cancer treatment, focusing on its potential benefits, such as increased precision and reduced radiation exposure. Through a scoping review of 21 studies, it highlights how software-guided interventions can improve precision, reduce procedural time, lower radiation exposure and minimise contrast media usage. The paper concludes that integrating software navigation into angiography procedures holds promise for enhancing liver cancer treatment, provided that appropriate training and adaptation of practices occur.

In this systematic review, we explore the latest advancements in MRI techniques used to detect and characterise brain metastases in lung cancer patients. We focus on MRI and machine learning methods, which have shown potential in enhancing diagnosis, prognosis and personalised treatment for those with lung cancer and brain metastases.

This commentary highlights the way AI has begun to impact radiation therapy treatment planning and looks ahead to potential future developments in this space. Radiation therapists will play an important role in how AI-based automation is implemented into practice in Australia, ensuring its application can truly enable personalised and higher-quality treatment for patients.

This commentary summarises three coronial inquests that involved medical radiation practitioners, discusses how these coronal findings are reflected in the communicating safety policy and provides some recommendations for the profession to ensure this policy is enacted in clinical practice.

This article describes how we incorporated consumer engagement into a quality improvement activity and a research study. In demonstrating consumer engagement steps, considerations and our learnings, we aim to encourage further consumer engagement activities amongst medical radiation professionals.

This paper reports on the development of the ‘Breathe In Radiography Podcast’ series for radiography students and provides suggestions for evaluation. Podcast development followed a structured framework, including identification of podcast topics and expert guests, content development, audio recording, episode upload to host site and distribution. Using a framework was useful to guide development and ensure consistency across podcast episodes.