Fundamentals of Diagnostic Radiology CD-ROM
Author: Cupido Daniels Individual/InstitutionISBN: 9780944838716 ISBN10: 0944838715
Published: 1996 | | CD-ROM
Price: $ 19.95 was 39.95
Journal of the American Medical Association | August 13, 1997, Vol 278
"The CD-ROM Fundamentals of Diagnostic Radiology is the work of four radiologists and a managing editor from the radiology department of Dalhousie University in Canada. I ran the program without any difficulty under Windows 3.1 on a Pentium90 and under Windows 95 on a Pentium133. The system requirements are given as a 486 or higher PC, Windows 3.1 or 95, 2x or higher CD drive, 640 x 480 or better video adapter, and 32K or higher colors.
"The intended audience is medical students, junior radiology residents, clinical trainees, and radiologic technologists. Although the title suggests a general review of diagnostic radiology, the CD-ROM is a series of cases emphasizing imaging on emergency department patients. Four sections cover the abdomen and pelvis, chest, musculoskeletal system, and neuroradiology. The last three contain tutorials and unknown cases, which take the student through an organized series of screens on basic topics such as brain hemorrhage, infarction, and tumor. The section on the abdomen and pelvis has cases but not the tutorials. Normal anatomy, basic imaging principles, radiographic findings, and examination appropriateness are covered in each section.
"In addition to these four sections, there are modules on normal examinations, movies in AVI (Microsoft Audio Visual Interleaved) format, and a glossary of common diagnoses with matching images. The normal examinations include 12 plain film examinations, one computed tomography scan, and one magnetic resonance (MR) image of the head. These images are unlabelled and without descriptive text so they may not be helpful to the intended beginner audience.
"The movie module consists of eight examinations of multiple modalities including ultrasound, carotid angiography, MR angiography, gallium scans, upper gastrointestinal examination, and 3D reformatted images of the pelvis. The ultrasound exams make the best use of the movie format as they show the dynamics of vascular flow. The other exams show rotating images in various planes. Since the material has no explanatory text, the intended audience may not find these images helpful. I was able to run only five of the eight movies; in the others an error message indicated that the files could not be opened.
"Clicking on a topic in the glossary module brings up the corresponding radiograph. As in the normal anatomy section, there is no accompanying text, so beginners will need access to a standard textbook for further discussion.
"I found that a computer format is a nice change from a textbook. I was pleased that a computer display using 800 x 600 resolution had no limitations in image appearance. All the images are of high quality, so there is seldom difficulty visualizing the abnormality. In rare instances, such as the pneumothorax case, the pathology could not be visualized.
"The module of tutorials and cases is fun to use. It gives a visually attractive, alternative way of learning, which is the goal of computer-based teaching. The text is focused and appropriate for the intended beginner audience. I would have preferred that the effort spent developing the normal anatomy, movie, and glossary modules had instead been directed to expanding the tutorial and cases sections, either by covering more entities or adding other body areas such as gastrointestinal or genitourinary radiology. It would also have been helpful to have hyperlinks to similar topics and an online index of cases to use as a reference. As a series of case reviews and at a cost of $195, this might make a reasonable purchase for a library for use by multiple individuals as a break from textbook study."
Arthur A. DeSmet, MD
University of Wisconsin-Madison