All Blog Posts (2,521)

Radiologists who are neat-freaks should give yourself a pat on the back. A new study from Harvard Medical School found that the cleanliness and receptionist’s demeanor heavily influences a patient’s perception of the radiology department.

A team of researchers led by Johannes Boos analyzed surveys from 4,938 of the…

A phony radiology clinic in Kissimmee, Florida was busted after six years of conducting unlicensed mammography procedures. Alba Garcia and Oscar Alzate, the owners of Digital Radiology Center, Inc. and Medisound, Inc., clinics, were recently charged with Medicaid fraud and running an unlicensed clinic. The two are now serving three-year prison terms for billing Medicaid for $180,000 worth of fabricated radiology…

Scotland seems to have a burgeoning healthcare crisis on its hands. The Scottish National Party (SNP) is being held accountable for mismanaging the country’s healthcare system by failing to sufficiently train radiologists and neglecting to adequately staff hospitals with physicians.

According to the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR), patients’ health is at risk due to wide-spread physician vacancies, scarcity…

New Delhi’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has introduced a new radiology-centric healthcare initiative that will enable all of the city’s residents to access free radiology tests. The action is apart of a wave of legislation to increase government spending in both healthcare and public education sectors.  

In the last two years, the AAP has doubled Delhi’s education budget and grown its healthcare funds by one and a…

Anyone who saw a radiologist recently in northwestern British Columbia might want to get a second opinion. Turns out, between October 2016 and January 2017, thousands of x-ray, CT scans, and ultrasounds may have been incorrectly analyzed at Terrace Mills Memorial Hospital.

On January 25, physicians realized that an x-ray was read improperly. The discovery prompted the facility to re-examine all of the images the…

 Pregnancy incites changes in the body — that’s common knowledge. But did you know that being pregnant also has serious repercussions on the brain? A first-of-its-kind study has found that there’s a symmetrical reduction in the brain’s grey matter during pregnancy in the medial frontal, posterior cortex, and certain sections of the prefrontal and temporal cortex.

The researchers from the Universitat…

At the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference, Watson Health introduced IBM Watson Imaging Clinical Review, a cognitive “peer-review” resource that eliminates discrepancies between a patient’s clinical diagnosis and administrative records. The new system streamlines reports and ultimately improves the accuracy in a patient’s record.…

Radiology reports are predominantly text-based since radiologists have started practicing.  When developing radiology reports, the measurements of target lesions are often lacking. These measurements are critical for oncology trials in order to evaluate how tumors are reacting to therapy. However, there might be some hope in the form of multimedia reports. A recent study from the U.S. National Institutes of Health found…

There is an undoubtedly growing interest in interventional oncology. The burgeoning field, which only took root about a decade ago, is based on the practice of minimally-invasive procedures and therapies on patients who require little recovery time. The practice usually focuses on cancer treatment through image diagnosis — via x-ray, MRI, PET scan, CT scan, or ultrasound. In response to the surge of attention, the board of directors for the World Conference on Interventional Oncology (WCIO)…

Making a diagnostic error is something that many radiologists will grapple with in their careers. According to a study from Johns Hopkins University School Medicine, nearly 75 percent of all medical malpractice suits against radiologists are pursued on the basis of diagnostic errors.  

The study’s researchers attribute overwhelming work responsibilities, increased expectations, bureaucratic protocol, and cognitive biases to diagnostic errors in the field. Cognitive errors are…

Work is stressful, we can all agree. Radiologists face a never-ending to-do list, and scrambling to get everything done on time is the perfect recipe for stress. Yet, in terms of burn out rates, radiologists are not as susceptible to letting stress get to them as other specialists. According to a 2016 Medscape poll, radiology had a 50 percent burn out rate, and ranked tenth in the most ‘burned…

1. You like it. Being happily engaged with your work will usually amount to some success. Radiology requires enthusiasm for lots of reading, health technology, anatomy, physics, and clinical medicine, and those are just the basics of what you should enjoy in the field.

2. You’re dedicated. If you don’t think you’ll ever be ready to let go over the resident routines, and you get fired up by the notion of 20 to 30 hours a week of reading, then your level of…

The doctor-patient relationship isn’t always smooth sailing. The exam room is a vulnerable space for patients where some feel like their health is being scrutinized. Others complain that they don’t get enough face time with their physician, take for example this one 2013 study that found medical interns only spend 12 percent of their working hours in direct service with their patients. However, radiologists might be outlier in the…

A team of Stanford University researchers are on track to giving smartphones the power to diagnose skin cancer. In a study published in Nature, researchers used a Google-created algorithm to identify and diagnose more than 2,000 different types of skin diseases using

129,450 clinical images.

In the U.S. alone, there are about 5.4 million new cases of skin cancer discovered every…

Electronic health records (EHR) streamline physician and patient interactions, and they’re the easiest way to access a patient’s medical history, medications, and radiology images. The original initiative behind EHRs was to create more efficient medical care, and ultimately reduce costs. Yet, a recent study from Stanford University and the National Bureau…

Although the number of women in medicine is growing, the number of female radiologists remains stagnant. According to a study published in the American Journal of Roentgenology, there is a gender imbalance in academic radiology. The team of researchers surveyed 51 prominent academic radiology faculties and found that only 34 percent of academic radiologists are female, and of that group, only 25 percent are vice…

 The hard truth is most physicians will face a lawsuit at least once in their career. In comparison with other specialties, radiologists rank in the middle in terms of their work being vulnerable to error. According to recent Medscape poll, 84 percent of radiologists 54-years-old and younger who responded had been involved in at least one malpractice lawsuit, that figure was even higher for…

MEDNAX, Inc, the nation-wide mega conglomerate of mainly neonatal services, has recently acquired Radiology Alliance, PC, the largest private radiology group in Tennessee. This is an unsuspected purchase for MEDNAX, Inc., as the medical group with headquarters in Florida mainly specializes in teleradiology through VRAD, neonatal, maternal-fetal, pediatrics, and anesthesia. Yet, the acquisition is apart of the group’s initiative to expand and streamline their services. This is also a signal…

Safety conditions have come a long way in radiology. Back in the day, radiologists who graduated before 1940 were susceptible to increased mortality rates from diseases such as myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome, melanoma, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, all conditions related to radiation exposure. Before the emerging of technical advancements in machinery and radiation protection, radiologists were more frequently exposed to low and moderate doses of radiation, and thus in danger of…

A misdiagnosis isn’t a mistake radiologists can just let go of. In fact, it’s one of the most concerning and anxiety provoking issue that comes with practicing medicine. According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, 90 percent of radiologists have faced a malpractice lawsuit at least once in their career. Incorrect breast cancer diagnosis is the most common reason why patients sue — at 3.57 claims per 1,000 patients, according to…