ABSTRACT
This chapter will summarise an ethnographic study of culture in a Diagnostic Imaging Department (DID) with the primary focus on Diagnostic Radiographers. The objectives of the study were to describe the culture in a DID and highlight the current workplace cultural issues that face diagnostic radiographers, to explore how people learn to become a diagnostic radiographer and how they become professionally socialised, and to observe and describe how diagnostic radiographers communicate and interact within the DID. We will describe the methods used and outline the results of the study. An ethnographic approach was used and participant observation was carried out for a four month period in a DID in the East of England. Semi-structured interviews with ten key informants were carried out to explore further the issues uncovered by the observation. There will also be a summary of the results of the study and implications for ethnographic research within the diagnostic radiography profession will be outlined.
