You can start reading the blog posts (a little way below) or click immediately below for an introduction to help you find what you came here for…
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Back from the Hack…
A couple of days ago I was alerted to the fact that MRImetaldetector.com had been hacked. Someone defaced this site and made the content of this blog inaccessible. Thanks to the technical assistance of my webhost (www.DowntownHost.com), we were able to retrieve and restore much of the previous content, by rebuilding the site and doing a little database trickery. As of right now, the text of the site is up and functional… but the images and media files are not. At least not yet.
I hope to have all of the prior content back and fully accessible in the next several days, if the technical spirits will cooperate.
The one thing that is irretrievably lost are comments that were awaiting moderation. My apologies to anyone who had responded to a piece, or posed questions that weren’t answered.
Thank you, one and all, for being a part of this community.
Tobias Gilk
(Not) Too Late For MRI Safety…
I apologize for my unusually long hiatus from posting. I’d love to tell you that I haven’t written because I’ve been so extraordinarily busy putting the final touches on a set of meaningful standards which will effectively protect the 30,000,000 (that’s million) annual MRI patients in the U.S. from the most frequent preventable MRI injuries. I’d love to tell you that, but it’d be a lie… Continue reading
It’s Come To This: Trading MRI Safety For Reimbursement Support
If you’ve ever been on an email mailing list for the ACR, then you’ve probably received a few of these in the last few months… emails imploring you to contact your Senators and Representatives to urge them to support the Diagnostic Imaging Services Access Protection Act (HR 3269). So far I’ve received three or four of them, and for the ones I’d received previously, I replied, agreeing to contact my elected officials on their behalf, but on one condition…
MRI Safety: Ambivalence vs. Hypocrisy
Ambivalence is rampant with respect to MRI safety. “It hasn’t happened to us (so therefore the risk is just theoretical)”, or “MRI is the safe modality”, or “our last license or accreditation surveyor didn’t say anything, so we must be good.” In large part, I understand this let-sleeping-dogs-lie attitude (I don’t agree with it, but I can understand where it comes from). What I can’t abide, however, is hypocrisy with regard to MRI safety as typified by one entity’s ‘we’re the greatest thing for MRI safety since sliced bread’ PR.
Yes, I’m talking about the ACR…
Looooooong Overdue…
Those who know me know that I’m an upbeat person. Not the spring-out-of-be-fifteen-minutes-before-the-alarm-”so-happy-to-greet-the-morning” type of upbeat, but more of an indefatigable cautious-optimism. Yes, there are bad days… days when I’d just prefer to pull the covers over my head to wait to see if next week Thursday offers enough to coax me out of bed. But I’m of the firm belief that – on those days – you have to drag your sorry butt out of bed and put one foot in front of the other, if for no other reason than you might forget how if you skip a day. Someday, no matter how distant or unlikely, you will meet your goal.
Guess what? Today is one of my somedays! Continue reading
Transparency & Disappearance
Ironically, those two words – so similar on the surface – often turn out to be antonyms. Today I’m going to attempt to provide you with some transparency relative to a recent disappearance here on this site.
MRI Safety, Per ACR Accreditation Standards
“Peachy Keen!”
One can only presume that this is the commentary that US States and radiology accreditation agencies have to offer on the contemporary state of MRI safety. After all, there’s been nothing more than navel-gazing when it comes to measurable changes in standards for MRI providers. Let’s break it down…
PLEASE Don’t Call It The “MRI Safe” Pacemaker…
It’s almost enough to bring my high school English teacher back from the dead… me, railing on someone else’s vocabulary skills. What I’m talking about here is the new Revo pacemaker (formerly known as Enrhythm) by Medtronic, designed to allow pacemaker patients to receive MRI scans.
Revo MRI Sure Scan Pacemaker by Medtronic
Horns Of A Dilemma – Bad MRI Suite Design
Unlike most of my posts, this one does not offer a position, much less a ‘call to action.’ Instead, I pose a question. You can read it as rhetorical, and allow me to stew in my own juices, or offer your thoughts. The essence of my question is what obligation do I have when I see horrible MRI suite design?
MRI Safety Resolution
I’m not big on New Years’ resolutions. In fact, I’ve previously resolved to not resolve… but today I’m breaking that vow (or would that be a ‘disavow’?). This year there are just too many things precariously poised — that could fall our way or not — that I can’t help but to resolve to rededicate myself to making substantive changes to industry standards and practices for MR safety, and here’s how I’m going to do it…