We have an exciting vacancy in the South West for an engineer ideally located Bristol – South Wales to become a Level 1 Ultrasound Field Service Engineer.

Field based, this is a customer facing role that services, installs, maintains and modifies Canon Medical Systems equipment within the regional area, occasionally providing support to other regions throughout the United Kingdom and across Europe.

As part of the field engineering team, this role provides both onsite and telephone support to Canon Medical Systems customers.

Working individually and as part of a team this role is key in ensuring customers’ needs are met and equipment has the maximum possible uptime in line with business performance indicators and ISO quality management systems.

Main Responsibilities:

  1. To perform planned preventative maintenance on equipment.
  2. To plan and book your own maintenance visits with customers.
  3. To carry out adjustments and log retrieval on systems.
  4. To attend pre-diagnosed level 1 breakdowns and parts replacements.
  5. To carry out proven level 1 FMI’s within the required deadlines.
  6. To carry out proven level 1 software updates within the required deadlines.
  7. To provide onsite assistance (second pair of hands) as required.
  8. Any other level 1 tasks as defined by the service management team.

Experience/Qualifications required:

  • Good general standard of education, with excellent written and spoken English.
  • Engineering qualification (ONC level is desirable) or equivalent experience.
  • A valid driving licence.
  • Successful Disclosure and Barring checks (formally known as CRB checks) at basic level.

HOW TO APPLY – To apply for this role please send your CV to: HR.UK@eu.medical.canon quoting reference L1UL2608

Collaboration includes co-funding a PhD studentship & providing echo equipment

Canon Medical Systems UK has announced that it is supporting University of Exeter research by co-funding a PhD studentship to research cardiac function and health and fitness in children with paediatric congenital heart disease. The aim of the project is to improve the understanding of the interaction between heart diseases and exercise and to improve and refine exercise guidelines for young people with congenital heart disease with the hope of improving the wellbeing of thousands of children in the UK and beyond.

The PhD candidate, Curtis Wadey, started in January 2020 and is working closely with Professor Craig Williams, Head of the Children’s Health and Exercise Research Centre (CHERC). Mr Wadey is also working with Dr Guido Pieles, Paediatric Cardiologist at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children and the Bristol Heart Institute. The CHERC team will have access to state-of-the-art Canon Medical echocardiography ultrasound equipment, as well as bespoke training and support delivered by the Canon Medical team.

“This collaboration with Canon Medical is essential to further the research in paediatric heart research,” states Curtis Wadey. “Canon Medical provide the university and our research group with the essential tools, support and financial backing to research children’s heart disease.”

“Having had the chance to work alongside Canon Medical for the last five years, we are really excited by this growing relationship and future opportunities, especially related to paediatric health care,” states Professor Williams. “There are few centres around the world dedicated to these topics and we are proud of this partnership.”

Mark Hitchman, Managing Director of Canon Medical Systems UK, states “Canon Medical is motivated by partnerships such as this one which we have valued for many years now. Taking the partnership to a new level to benefit the young, with known or unknown heart problems, is reward enough. However, working in partnership with great people and highly reputable institutions to improve the quality of life, improve life expectancy and even save lives is what really drives us. On that basis we are particularly proud of this collaboration.”

Mr Wadey is joined by two other PhD students: Dr Dan-Mihai Dorobantu, a cardiologist whose PhD is funded by the GW4 MRC Doctoral Training Programme; and Nurul Amir, a specialist in rehabilitation, based at the University of Bristol. Two experienced research fellows, based in Exeter and funded by Canon Medical and the charity Heart Research UK, will join the team later this year.

The aim of the University of Exeter research unit has always been to raise the profile of children’s health and wellbeing both nationally and internationally. This includes creating awareness about the health risks of children’s inactivity, working on the prevention of cardiovascular diseases in school-aged children or advancing the knowledge of exercise benefits for children with chronic medical conditions. Another of the research unit’s main focuses has also been investigating the health and wellbeing of young athletes, which led to a fruitful first collaboration with Canon Medical, the Bristol Heart Institute and the youth division of Manchester United Football Academy, to investigate the physiology of the young athlete’s heart.

Professor Craig Williams, Director of the Children’s Health & Exercise Research Centre (CHERC); Tim Palarm, Regional Manager, Canon Medical Systems UK; and Curtis Wadey, PhD student at the University of Exeter.

Metal artefact reduction technology on new CT scanner benefits A&E team in Glasgow

 A new CT scanner situated in the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Department of Glasgow Royal Infirmary has been praised for its metal artefact reduction algorithm that enables hospital staff to gain clearer imaging to assist more confident and faster diagnosis.

The SEMAR™ application on the Canon Medical Aquilion Prime SP CT eliminates the distortion of metallic artefacts inside patients generated from items such as orthopaedic plates or screws; medically implanted coils or clips; or fragments from trauma incidents. It automatically removes the streaks of distortion around the metal items, even retrospectively, to improve the visualisation of medical images for clinical interpretation with no increase in patient dose.

“Metal management in patients is an issue that has been on the CT imaging innovation radar for some time,” states Iain Gray, Account Manager at Canon Medical Systems UK. “For A&E departments it can help with imaging patients with metal trauma wounds. Add to this the fact that our population is ageing, and so too are their joints, there is also a growing increase in the use of replacement metal prostheses. Plus, the advancements of managing life threatening conditions such as coiling or clipping aneurysms further adds to the potential of metal being present inside the twenty first century patient.”

“It is an unfortunate fact of life that in a busy city A&E we see all sorts of trauma cases. Being able to examine a patient precisely with potential metal fragments inside them is a great advantage in treatment planning. Without the SEMAR CT technology the metal would cause distortion on the resulting medical images and could obscure tissue or bone imagery. Now, we can confidently see if fragments are inside the body and rapidly understand what impact they have caused,” states Karen Macdonald, CT Modality Lead Radiographer at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

The Aquilion Prime SP CT at Glasgow Royal Infirmary remained as an A&E scanner during the COVID-19 crisis but has undertaken both acute trauma cases and COVID-19 chest scans with stringent cleaning in between procedures. It has quickly delivered many advantages to the radiology team compared to the previous ageing scanner it replaced.

Karen Macdonald adds, “An additional benefit of the new Canon Medical CT scanner is cardiac gating. Previously a patient presenting at A&E would need to be transferred to the Radiology Department – this incurred time and required transfer staff. Now, high-quality gating can happen as soon as patients present at the front door of A&E which gives them a much better outcome.”

The Aquilion Prime SP CT installation at Glasgow Royal Infirmary is one of five Canon Medical CTs recently awarded by Greater Glasgow & Clyde Health Board. The other sites include one at Inverclyde Royal Hospital; two at Gartnavel General Hospital; and one at The Institute of Neurological Sciences.