Radiology and imaging

386 articles · Since 2005

Articles, page 5

5 things this doctor wished he could tell his patients

May 3, 2019May 3, 2019

1. I am not omnipotent. As health care providers our ability to treat is sometimes affected by factors beyond our control--- limitations in technology, variations in our work environment, and human nature. While we always commit to performing our very…

1. I am not omnipotent.

As health care providers our ability to treat is sometimes affected by factors beyond our control— limitations in technology, variations in our work environment, and human nature. While we always commit to performing our very best, our best may vary from day to day; if my best is not the best for you, then I will offer you all possible alternatives. Furthermore, not all disease can be cured, nor every malady …

Physician voices

Radiation oncologists aren’t just strangers in the basement

Mudit Chowdhary, MD

February 6, 2019Feb 6, 20192

“We have a consult for radiation oncology regarding a 60-year-old gentleman with a history of lung cancer and is currently admitted. His oncologist is Dr. Heme Onc.” As a new radiation oncology resident, I was surprised to hear the consulting…

“We have a consult for radiation oncology regarding a 60-year-old gentleman with a history of lung cancer and is currently admitted. His oncologist is Dr. Heme Onc.”

As a new radiation oncology resident, I was surprised to hear the consulting physician refer to the patient’s medical oncologist as “his oncologist.” What about the patient’s radiation oncologist? Indeed, I remembered the patient well: he was diagnosed with Stage IIIB non-small cell lung …

Health technology

Will artificial intelligence be able to have this conversation?

Shannon Dowler, MD

February 5, 2019Feb 5, 2019

Transformation of health care is underway: The landscape is filled with innovation, and the horizon is dotted with technological possibilities of “Star Trek” ilk. In a recent New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst article, there was a compelling argument for how artificial intelligence (AI) of the future will help deliver us from a high cost, high variability, poorly resourced state and help deliver the IHI triple aim quest we in …

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Physician voices

Why would any woman discourage a man’s advocacy or support?

Agnieszka Solberg, MD

February 4, 2019Feb 4, 20195

A male interventional radiologist who is active in the #HeForShe campaign recently told me that he is being pressured to stop advocating for women. My first instinct was the biggest sigh and eyeroll of my life followed by thoughts of…

But the criticism did not just come from men; many women are asking him to stop. That they don’t need a knight …

Physician finance

How a radiology trick can surprisingly help your finances

Xrayvsn, MD

January 31, 2019Jan 31, 2019

One of the great teaching experiences in a young medical student or resident's life is to be placed in front of his or her peers with an attending physician quizzing him or her on the spot about a particular patient.…

One of the great teaching experiences in a young medical student or resident’s life is to be placed in front of his or her peers with an attending physician quizzing him or her on the spot about a particular patient.

Often, when radiology imaging is involved, the said victim will be asked to interpret the study and point out any salient features.

I have been subject to this numerous times in my …

Physician voices

MOC: When you play the game and they change the rules

Xrayvsn, MD

January 25, 2019Jan 25, 201911

I think one of the biggest frustrations I have as a doctor is being at the mercy of people who either have no medical training or are so detached from medicine that they have lost touch with those on the…

The American Board of Radiology (ABR) essentially governs over radiologists who typically need the important board-certified designation to find a place of employment.

I have always played by the rules …

Health policy

An approach to prior authorization insurance denials

Chaim Colen, MD & Debraj Mukherjee, MD

January 6, 2019Jan 6, 20196

Patient access to care is a high priority for all neurosurgeons. Unfortunately, many of our practices are thwarted in these efforts from unwarranted insurance denials. Know, you are not alone. Take this common scenario: When Ms. Mary Smith (not the…

When Ms. Mary Smith (not the patient’s real name) started her new job several years ago, she purchased the premium insurance policy that her company provided. Recently, she developed severe neck and left arm pain. Imaging of

…

Physician voices

A radiologist saved my father’s life

Barbara Hamilton, MD

January 4, 2019Jan 4, 201912

My dad flew to California in the spring to meet his grandson, who was about five months old at the time. He wasn’t that interested in baby care. He mostly wanted to sight-see and spend the evenings watching TV. One weekday morning, he ventured out on a hike alone, while I was at work. He left at 9 a.m. and never came home.

We live at the base of a dusty …

Read more…

A radiologist saved my father’s life

Physician voices

Why do we still use CD-ROMs for radiology images?

Paul Sax, MD

November 21, 2018Nov 21, 20182

In the United States, any person who has tried getting their own (or their patient’s) radiology images from another hospital or practice will find the practice painful. Here are several obvious reasons why the CD-ROM — briefly the darling of…

In the United States, any person who has tried getting their own (or their patient’s) radiology images from another hospital or practice will find the practice painful.

Here are several obvious reasons why the CD-ROM — briefly the darling of large data transfer — is a truly terrible way to share radiology images in 2018:

They require physical transfer. Remember the term “snail mail”? Do people still say that?

They are slow. When you bring a …

Physician voices

When physicians order tests: a tale of 2 patients

Fred N. Pelzman, MD

October 25, 2018Oct 25, 20187

Sometimes things go just the way you want them to, and sometimes they don't. Compare and contrast the case of two different patients, and how things went trying to get them the care they needed. The first patient, let's call…

Sometimes things go just the way you want them to, and sometimes they don’t.

Compare and contrast the case of two different patients, and how things went trying to get them the care they needed.

The first patient, let’s call him Mr. Smith, called up one day last week with a brand-new symptom, which after a phone call was ultimately determined to be disturbing enough that he was offered a same-day appointment.

After …

Physician voices

Technologists drive quality in medical imaging

Cory Michael, MD

October 21, 2018Oct 21, 2018

As a radiologist, I interpret thousands of imaging studies every year. Of the millions of medical images that have crossed my screen, they all have one thing in common. They were all acquired by a technologist in the radiology department.…

Imaging technologists perform a vital role in medicine. All have specialized training that is unique and critical to patient care. Truth be told, many of them have a greater knowledge base …

Physician voices

A test taker’s worst nightmare became reality

Anonymous

October 18, 2018Oct 18, 2018

Doctors know high-pressure exams. The day before one is the worst. There is cramming followed by anxiety and insomnia. When sleep finally beats anxiety, the dreaded nightmare falls upon anxious test takers. Every doctor knows. Walking into the testing center, opening the exam, realizing you studied for the wrong exam. The questions might as well be a foreign language. This nightmare was a reality according to this year’s group of …

Conditions and diseases

Best practices in head CT imaging: How are we doing?

Christopher Johnson, MD

October 14, 2018Oct 14, 2018

Computed tomography, or CT scanning, is one of the most powerful diagnostic tools to emerge during my medical career. Just look at the detail in the brain images above, taken at 90-degree angles through the brain. And I was there at the beginning. I remember well when I was a medical student taking neurology, and the first CT scanner arrived at the Mayo Clinic. By today’s standards, it was incredibly …

Physician voices

Sometimes the most entitled people aren’t those you expect

Cory Michael, MD

September 30, 2018Sep 30, 20189

As I sat in a frozen yogurt store a couple of years back, I watched as two young men pulled up in an expensive vehicle. They were wearing athletic attire from a private faith-affiliated university in the neighborhood. Both grabbed sample cups and cup-by-cup consumed about ten dollars-worth of yogurt each before jestfully yelling “Gracias” to the Latin store employee and walking out the door without paying for anything. Then …

Physician voices

Sometimes what patients really need can be surprising

Sanjay Shewakramani, MD

September 1, 2018Sep 1, 2018

“I give up! I can’t help these people.” Emily was completing the final month of her emergency medicine residency and flopped into her chair with exasperation. “What’s up?” I asked. We were on the final two hours of our shift…

“I give up! I can’t help these people.” Emily was completing the final month of her emergency medicine residency and flopped into her chair with exasperation.

“What’s up?” I asked. We were on the final two hours of our shift together. And I, as her attending, was already feeling apprehensive about the patient encounter that awaited me.

“They want so much from me, and I can’t fix them!” She began to tell …

Conditions and diseases

Think you have an iodine allergy? You may want to reconsider.

Cullen Ruff, MD

August 13, 2018Aug 13, 2018

Let’s begin with a quiz question: Patients may be allergic to: A. oxygen B. carbon C. iodine D. none of the above If you answered anything but "D," better keep reading. Consider this scenario: If a patient is allergic to…

Let’s begin with a quiz question:

Patients may be allergic to:

A. oxygen
B. carbon
C. iodine
D. none of the above

If you answered anything but “D,” better keep reading.

Consider this scenario: If a patient is allergic to penicillin, you would document “penicillin” in the medical records. It would never occur to you to list “antibiotics” as an allergy, and you certainly would not call it a “carbon” allergy for slang, just because penicillin contains …

Medical education

Medical training is over. What’s the next chapter?

Manu Prativadi, MD

July 19, 2018Jul 19, 2018

Today is a strange day. I treated myself to a slice of nondescript doughy hospital pizza for lunch today. If this was an actual pizza place, and I had a choice, I would never order this pizza. But today, the…

Today is a strange day.

I treated myself to a slice of nondescript doughy hospital pizza for lunch today. If this was an actual pizza place, and I had a choice, I would never order this pizza. But today, the pizza tasted fantastic. In fact, it tasted like the best pizza I’ve ever had.

Why you ask?

Because this would likely be the last time I’d ever eat this hospital pizza. I enjoyed …

Conditions and diseases

The questionable ethics of ultrasound in pregnancy

Cory Michael, MD

June 6, 2018Jun 6, 2018

Having worked at both community hospitals and major medical centers, the issue of ultrasound in pregnancy has revealed itself to be more complex over the years. As a resident, I worked with an obstetrics office that only scanned their own patients who had private insurance and would send uninsured or Medicaid patients (often with a high risk of inadequate prenatal care) to the hospital late in the day to be …

Physician voices

Residents should not be mandated to do research

Skeptical Scalpel, MD

May 29, 2018May 29, 20185

In a 2012 blog post called “Things that puzzle me about surgical education,” I wrote the following: There was the emphasis that still exists today on making sure every resident did research. At last, some are questioning the value of…

In a 2012 blog post called “Things that puzzle me about surgical education,” I wrote the following:

There was the emphasis that still exists today on making sure every resident did research. At last, some are questioning the value of this for the average clinical surgeon. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, there is no evidence that a resident who is dragged kicking and screaming through a clinical research project or

…

Medical education

This medical student wants to be a radiologist. Does the field have a future?

Lewis Jordan

May 10, 2018May 10, 20185

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a term that is often associated with robots or computers that “learn” by having material introduced to them. Different people have different reactions to the idea of AI, especially with its potential use in medicine. AI can perform many tasks at the same time and in the same way producing results that will always be precise, but not necessarily accurate. This is relevant to fields …

Radiology and imaging

Articles, page 5

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