With this I make my official entry into the blogosphere. Why enter it at all, you may ask, as I have asked myself? (given that there are apparently 112 million blogs out there already in cyberspace!) Well, in essence, this blog’s raison d’etre is to focus on a unique form of medicine I practice as a radiologist, and that I feel uniquely qualified to talk about, called teleradiology.
Through the focus of this ‘tele-vision’ I have developed a perspective of medicine, global trade, quality standards, people’s attitudes, physician lifestyles and academics in general, and it is around these topics that this blog will revolve, as I begin it today.
For those of you not familiar with the term, Teleradiology does to radiology what Television does to vision, ie, it extends the reach of radiology.What is radical about the concept is that it shrinks the world and allows a radiologist to report a scan on a patient who is at a location diametrically across the globe near-synchronously. And so you have a patient at a hospital in Boston at 3 AM whose scan is reported (just minutes after it has been performed) by a radiologist in Bangalore (at 1.30 PM local time). Space Age Medicine?! This is something that never ceases to amaze me even though I have been working in this sphere (pun intended) for close on a decade. So for me, the satisfaction of making a lifesaving diagnosis, discussing my findings with the Emergency Physician and immediately contributing to the prompt care of a patient 5000 miles away is one that remains unmatched.
For anyone wanting an objective analysis of international teleradiology, allow me to refer you to two articles in no less august an authority than the New England Journal of Medicine (what may be called the New York Times of medicine) which can be read at the following links:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/354/7/662 and http://nejm.highwire.org/cgi/content/extract/357/1/5 .
Teleradiology’s many benefits, including how it addresses key manpower and staffing shortages, fills gaps and voids across the globe, provides a critical emergency service, raises the quality of diagnosis and thereby patient care, and even lowers costs, have been analyzed in many articles to date., namely:
http://radiology.rsna.org/content/232/2/415.full
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1346395 ; http://www.diagnosticimaging.com/display/article/113619/1177322?verify=0
But at the end of the day, I think that over and above the economics and the politics of it, for me, the personal fulfillment that comes out of doing something that is at once meaningful and satisfying and innovative and creative, is immense. And so teleradiology, for me, truly fits the bill.