Radiology

Does your radiology practice struggle with recruiting quality staff? Have you ever wondered what your recruiter or HR department was thinking when they sent you a resume? Having successfully recruited hundreds of candidates, I can tell you an effective and smooth hiring process happens through a collaborative team approach.

After reading Atul Gawande’s latest book, The Checklist Manifesto.   I have read all three of his books and I find him to be one of the most gifted and outstanding authors around, with fantastic readability and thoughtfulness. I highly encourage giving any of his works a perusal.

I can’t wait to “pinch and drag” to get a better look at potential abnormalities on a mobile screen!

Conventional 2D mammography images the whole breast in one exposure. Two images of each breast at orthogonal angles to one another are then acquired in order to aid the physician in creating a mental 3D picture of the breast. This is to ensure that the doctor is able to extrapolate information from 2D pictures and then subsequently find them in 3D space, in this case, the breast. The Achilles heel of conventional 2D mammography is the ability to find cancer in women with mammographically dense breasts. While it is fairly straightforward to visually detect cancer in a fatty breast, only about 50 percent of cancers will be visible in extremely dense breasts.

I don’t own an iPhone 4S. However, I certainly don’t feel impoverished with my iPhone 4. Yet, I certainly can feel excitement for what the possibilities hold for the future now that Apple has seized upon voice recognition (VR) technology as a potential means to increase our efficiency in these hectic times. Their embrace of this technology solution is a very good thing for the future of radiologists, as they have shown the Midas touch with whatever area of technology they get their hands on.

This blog post is a response to a lecture presented at the 2011 Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) meeting in Chicago. The lecture was entitled, “Outsourcing Emergency Radiology to Teleradiology Companies: The Debate Goes On.”  The presentation offered incorrect, unsupported statements about teleradiology and was based on a few anecdotal stories. I feel these blanket statements denigrated practicing teleradiologists.

The Radiologic Society of NorthAmerica (RSNA) annual meeting is around the corner and our booth will be packed with demos of our scalable technology solutions that support the needs of radiology practices and hospitals nationwide. Our world-class radiologists will be on hand to answer questions and guide you through our innovative radiology solutions. Here is a sneak peak at what you can expect when you visit booth #7513 at RSNA 2011!

There are many reasons (excuses) women give me for not getting a mammogram. “I’m too fat, when I lose 10 pounds I’ll go.” “They’re too small. There can’t possibly be anything bad brewing in there.” Or this one, “I breast fed so I am protected from breast cancer.” I have heard it all and I absolutely sympathize. After all, who wants to stand exposed with only a flimsy gown on in a cold room only to have one’s breasts squished hard in some barbaric looking machine? But, make no mistake, the benefits of getting a yearly mammogram abound once your breasts are about 40 years old. It still remains the single best screening tool we have.

I have chosen the title for my blog entries, "The Quandary". A quandary is defined as a state of uncertainty or indecision as to what to do in a difficult situation. I believe this is a great description of where radiology and radiologists find ourselves in these changing times as we try to determine the right path individually and professionally. Hopefully what we discuss here will help us move from a quandary to answers we can put into action. And so without further delay, the inaugural blog.