The Reading Room

For years, radiograph interpretation has been taught the same way. Read the films in to out. Be·consistent. Find the abnormalities. Write down the list. There, you have your radiology report.

But·honestly what do you have? A list. And what good is a list? A list needs to be in the context of something·else to become useful. For example, go to your fridge and create a list of what is needed. Now you have·a list, a list that is useful when you go to the grocery store. Without the grocery store that list is useless.·Give that list to someone else and who knows what you’ll get back. Maybe they will go to the·wrong store and/or buy the wrong brand. Therefore, a list is only useful if you know what to do with that information.

Speaking at CVC in Kansas City was an incredible experience. Educating (and sometimes being educated) about veterinary radiology was priceless. Digital radiography still seems to be the buzz word, and I even had several attendees tell me they really enjoyed and benefited from my lecture on the subject. One attendee thought the lecture was so worthwhile that they asked me to get my main point out to the rest of the veterinary community.·So, for those who didn’t attend, here is the take-home message:

“It is a great time to be in the market to go digital, however, the focus should be less on the price and more on customer service."

Veterinarians - Do you dream of getting home earlier but are trapped at work due to typing reports and managing records?

Into the evening, do you often find yourself saying, “I wish I could take care of this at home”? After running around for 10 hours, the last thing you want to do is spend another two hours at work writing reports.

Are you considering a picture archiving and communication system (aka PACS) but are apprehensive due to the investment required? ·Just to clarify, PACS is an economical and automated system that makes it easy to store and retrieve images from pretty much anywhere. ·Thanks to the open source revolution, there are quite a few proven and free options for both PC and Mac that should be seriously considered if you’re looking to roll out a modern solution to image storage.·DICOM viewers, free or paid, are useful when dealing with a DICOM—compliant PACS or cloud-PACS system—such as the coming Vetology platform (more on this at a later date). Having a DICOM viewer on your computer will allow you to view images and other data that is stored in a DICOM format.

OsiriX

AAVR Veterinary Association for Veterinarians & Technicians

Disclosure:
The AAVR offers free and fee based educational information about veterinary imaging. Within the educational information, both unrelated and related company products may be mentioned and/or paid advertising may be displayed. Companies related directly to the AAVR through ownership or member participation are Vetology.ai, Vetology.net, San Diego Veterinary Imaging and the Veterinary Imaging Center of San Diego, Inc. The AAVR and ACVR are separate, independent companies.