WHO AM I?

My name is Michael Tobin. I am Board Certified in both Radiology and in Nuclear Medicine. In addition, I hold a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Columbia University.

PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY:

I am attempting to reconstruct my website from its former home on Octet. This will take time. Your patience is appreciated.

This web site will be of most interest to:

Medical students, residents, physicians, and health professionals who wish to enhance their understanding of plain film radiology.
Those interested in computer applications in medicine and medical education.
Those interested in Nuclear Medicine.
Amiga computer users, who may wish to know that this web site and its contents were created with, and are maintained entirely by, Amiga computers.

******************

This web site is constantly being updated. Read all the way to the bottom of this page to learn of the latest enhancements. Please be patient; this is a solo effort. Those surfing the Internet for medical information had better read this DISCLAIMER first!

Academic Endeavors
- Publications, as listed in my resume.
- Selected publications, reproduced online.
- Educational Projects in Radiology and Nuclear Medicine.
Radiology teaching cases. Need Instructions?
- Access Unknowns (Quiz Cases).
- Access Examples (from a list).
- Utilize the Nuclear Medicine Teaching File in HTML Format.
- Read Patient Education in Nuclear Medicine in HTML Format. (Voice files, other than for Bone, are not included due to space limitations.)
Annotated Reading List for Radiology Residents.
Points of View --
Editorial opinions about a variety of topics including -- Radiology, computers, the Amiga, education, and much more. Intended to provoke respectful discussion as must exist in a free society.
Links to useful sources of information.

NEW CHATTER

I am attempting to reconstruct my website from its former home on Octet.
- Almost all broken links and redirections have now been resolved. According to Xenu's Link Sleuth, I have more than 1100 internal links on my website which, according to Earthlink, is approximately 48 megabytes in size.
- I am now systematically reviewing each page for HTML and spelling errors. You can just imagine what a massive project this is for a person who works during the day!
I have recently uploaded: Survey of how people view the medical Internet and the impact of medical website usage on the patient/physician relationship.
- I receive many e-mails asking for medical advice even though I request that they not be sent. The questions people send me are usually very reasonable and definitely are the sort that should be addressed to their physicians.
- So why do people insist on sending their questions to me? Do they not trust their physicians? Are their physicians not receptive to questions? Are they afraid to ask? Is it a question of cost? Convenience? And what about the accuracy of what's out there on medical websites?
- These and other questions convinced me to conduct a survey to find out what people were trying to achieve by visiting medical websites and how what they learned impacted on their relationships with their doctors.
- What you will find on my website is the equivalent of a 50 page report and analysis of the data. This paper took over a year to write and for me was a major commitment.
Another recent article I have written is Effects of Lossless and Lossy Image Compression and Decompression on Archival Image Quality.
- Disk storage space is increasing rapidly and the price is falling. However, the number of radiology studies and the number of images per study are increasing even faster. The pressures are great for storing medical images in compressed format.
- Lossy compression leads to greater space savings than does lossless. But, how much information is lost during lossy compression and does it matter diagnostically?
- My article suggests that the amount of lossy compression that can be tolerated depends on a variety of factors, including image modality (e.g., x-ray vs. CT scan) and the pathology in question.
- I conclude that lossy image compression be used with great caution, if at all.
I am hoping that another article entitled "My Experience With Speech Recognition Including A Speech (Non)Recognition Dictionary" will appear in print shortly. It was accepted for publication by Applied Radiology.
I continue to enjoy hearing from you.
- You can send e-mail to mikety@mindspring.com. You can also contact me using ICQ. My ICQ number is 13841387.
- Please remember that this website is not a substitute for speaking with your own physician.
- Please respect that I cannot give personal medical advice on the web, for many, many reasons, practical as well as legal. You may read the disclaimer for more information. Thanks.

E-mail your comments to: mikety@mindspring.com

You are visitor number since April 29, 2002. There have been almost 40,000 visitors to the Amiga Radiologist since October 15, 1996.

Miriam is now the official mascot of this web site. If you like, you can read about her.

Latest Revisions

12/07/02 -- Finished advising linked sites of URL change.
11/20/02 -- Long process of HTML code correction.
11/15/02 -- Resolved most broken links.
11/04/02 -- Transfered website to mikety.net
06/02/02 -- Began update list of references.
01/04/99 -- Added ICQ number (13841387).

WHO AM I?

CONTENTS