September 2009

Visiting Scholar Ronald M. Summers, MD, PhD

Stanford Radiology welcomes Ronald M. Summers, MD, PhD, who is on sabbatical leave from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Department of Radiology where he serves as chief of the clinical image processing service and directs the Imaging Biomarkers and Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) Laboratory.

Dr. Summers received his BA degree in physics and his MD and PhD degrees in medicine/anatomy & cell biology from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed a medical internship at the Presbyterian-University of Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, PA; a radiology residency at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; and an MRI fellowship at Duke University, Durham, NC.

In 1994, he joined the Diagnostic Radiology Department at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD, where he is now a tenured senior investigator and staff radiologist. His clinical areas of specialty are thoracic and gastrointestinal radiology as well as body cross-sectional imaging, and his research interests include virtual colonoscopy, CAD, and the development of large radiologic image databases. Dr. Summers is a co-chair of the Computer-Aided Diagnosis Program and program committee member of the Biomedical Applications Section of the annual Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) Medical Imaging Conference. His many awards and honors include the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, which was presented to him in 2000 by Dr. Neal Lane, former President Clinton's science advisor. In addition, Dr. Summers has co-authored over 190 journal publications, review articles, and conference proceedings, and he is a co-inventor on eight patents. In his spare time, Dr. Summers enjoys traveling and photography.

Dr. Sze: A Man in a Surgical Cap

If you look up as you walk past the Lucas Center towards the Center for Clinical Sciences Research (CCSR), you will see a photo of Dr. Dan Sze in surgical scrubs on a banner dedicated to patient care. The author of a recent SOM article entitled, "Banner Season to Mark 50th Anniversary," describes Dr. Sze's banner as "a man in a surgical cap." The banner with Dr. Sze's photo is one of six designs commemorating the Medical Center's move in 1959 from San Francisco to Palo Alto and marking the Center's 50th anniversary. In addition to the Medical Center, banners are also located on the perimeter of the Medical Center along Pasteur Drive and Welch Road as well as on lampposts along El Camino Real in Palo Alto. Already featured at alumni events and commencement, they will remain on display until early October. In the near future, the banner designs will be displayed on bookmarks. To read more, please access http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2009/august/brief-banners-0812.html or Download file.

Awards and Honors II: September 23, 2009

Scott W. Atlas, MD, professor and chief of neuroradiology and senior fellow at both the Hoover Institution and Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies, has received an international honor on September 12, 2009, at the Annual Meeting of the Sociedade de Radiologia de Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil, for his "important contributions to radiology and to education in Brazil."

Dr. Atlas is recognized as a world leader in both education and clinical research and has been on the Nominating Committee for the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for several years. His research has centered on advanced applications of new MRI technologies in neurologic diseases, and he has authored more than 120 scientific publications in leading journals. Dr. Atlas is also the editor of the best-selling textbook Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain and Spine, which was recently released in its 4th edition and officially translated from English into Mandarin, Spanish, and Portuguese. He is also editor, associate editor, and an editorial board member of numerous scientific journals, and he has been a member of the boards of many major national and international scientific societies over the past decade. In recognition of his leadership in the field, Dr. Atlas has received many awards and honors. He has been named by his peers in The Best Doctors in America every year since its initial publication, as well as in regional listings, such as The Best Doctors in New York, Silicon Valley's Best Doctors, and other similar publications. He recently received the Alumni 2008 Comeback Award from his alma mater, the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

In addition, Dr. Atlas' work includes investigations into the effects of the changing healthcare marketplace on technology-based innovations in medicine, and he has lectured throughout the world on a variety of topics, most notably advances in MRI of the brain, and the key economic issues related to the future of such technology-based advances. During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, Dr. Atlas was a senior advisor for health care and the coordinator of the Health Policy Team for one of the major U.S. presidential candidates. At the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies, he has particular interests in the evolving healthcare system of emerging economies, and he recently received a Fulbright Award to collaborate with Chinese academic leaders on structuring healthcare solutions for China. Dr. Atlas has also participated with leaders from government and academia on the World Bank's Commission on Growth and Development, and he is an adviser to major industry leaders in medical technology.

To read his prior blog articles, please access "Awards and Honors: March-April 2007"; "Awards and Honors: September 29, 2008"; "Sanford/Atlas: Alternatives to Government Health Takeover"; "Dr. Atlas' Commentary on Our Healthcare System Featured in The Washington Times"; and "Commentary by Dr. Atlas: 'Mr. Health Care: Ted Kennedy's Lifelong Passion' and 'Why Are These Health Care Fixes Ignored?'"

Awards and Honors I: September 23, 2009

Guillem Pratx, PhD, doctoral candidate in electrical engineering and member of the Molecular Imaging Instrumentation Laboratory, recently published an article in Physics in Medicine and Biology entitled "Bayesian Reconstruction of Photon Interaction Sequences for High-Resolution PET Detectors," which has been selected as a Featured Article by the editors of the Institute of Physics Journals. Dr. Pratx's article was chosen for its "novelty, high level of interest and potential impact on future research." To view his article, please access http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/-featured=jnl/0031-9155/54/17/001.

Dr. Pratx completed his undergraduate work in engineering at the Ecole Centrale in Paris, France. At Stanford (MIPS), he is completing his dissertation esearch, which centers on the development of practical algorithms hat exploit graphics processing units (GPU) for fast medical image reconstruction in ultra-high resolution PET systems under development at the University. For more details regarding his biography, please see Dr. Pratx's earlier award postings by accessing "Awards and Honors: August 2, 2007"; " Awards and Honors: December 17, 2007"; "Awards and Honors II: December 5, 2008"; and "Awards and Honors II: July 18, 2008."

Medical Students Need Earlier Exposure to Radiology According to Drs. Desser and Hovsepian

Although radiology still remains among the top 10 specialty choices, it has fallen from fifth to ninth, according to the National Residency Matching Program. In "Early Radiology Exposure Could Lure Medical Students to Specialty" from the August 2009 RSNA News, Terry Desser, MD, professor of radiology and residency program director, and David Hovsepian, MD, professor of radiology as well as chief quality and safety officer, describe the causes of decreasing interest in radiology while offering solutions.

According to Dr. Hovsepian, the diminished appeal of radiology as a career choice among medical students is due in part to "students' misperceptions about what radiologists actually do and the central role that we often play in patient care." One solution is to expose medical students early on to radiology, as Dr. Desser describes: "We need to be the ones teaching them anatomy and about imaging and manifestations of pathophysiology on imaging early on in their training, so they recognize what we do and what we contribute." To read the full article, please access http://www.rsna.org/Publications/rsnanews/August-2009/early_exposure_feature.cfm or Download file.

Dr. Sandy Napel Plays the Aquaphone on "West Coast Live"

When he bought tickets to be in the audience of the radio variety show "West Coast Live," Dr. Napel didn't expect to become part of the show. Neither did he anticipate being featured in the first sentence of an article from the San Francisco Chronicle entitled "West Coast Live': A Glimpse of Old-Time Radio"! But when the radio show host, Sedge Thomson, asked for audience volunteers to play the Aquaphone onstage, Dr. Napel couldn't resist volunteering to play the instrument, which is a special effect used to open the radio show that sounds similar to the noise of swimming in the bay. After working with state-of-the-art, high tech equipment at Stanford, playing the Aquaphone on live radio was a welcomed change for Dr. Napel, who left the show, according to "West Coast Live': A Glimpse of Old-Time Radio", "with his wife and teenage daughter . . . in the glow of old-time radio." To read the full article, please access http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/14/DD2H18NMVE.DTL or Download file.

Commentary by Dr. Atlas: "Mr. Health Care: Ted Kennedy's Lifelong Passion" and "Why Are These Health Care Fixes Ignored?"

Dr. Scott Atlas, professor and chief of neuroradiology as well as a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, was recently invited by Forbes Magazine to comment on healthcare reform. In "Mr. Health Care: Ted Kennedy's Lifelong Passion," Dr. Atlas describes Senator Kennedy's legacy to health care and the lessons regarding healthcare reform he believes the government should learn from Senator Kennedy's battle with cancer. To view his article, please access http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/26/health-care-reform-insurance-edward-kennedy-obama-pelosi-opinions-contributors-scott-w-atlas.html or Download file.

In his most recently published commentary, "Why Are These Health Care Fixes Ignored?", Dr. Atlas discusses the centralization of healthcare services in the United States while offering "five concrete steps that can increase competition among health insurers without positioning government as the dominant insurer itself." You can access his article at http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/08/health-care-competition-reform-opinions-contributors-obama-speech.html or Download file. To read his prior articles on healthcare reform, please access "Sanford/Atlas: Alternatives to Government Health Takeover" and "Dr. Atlas' Commentary on Our Healthcare System Featured in The Washington Times."

Medical Imaging: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Dr. Pat Basu's article "Medical Imaging: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly" was recently featured in Kaiser Health News and addresses the optimization of medical imaging. To read his article, please access http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Columns/2009/August/081309Basu.aspx or Download file.