- Podcasting from Yale medical library-

Yale medical library published an interesting study-cum-project-cum-guide for use of screencasts and podcasts by medical learners.

The study finds many more off-campus users of the medical podcasts and videos than on-campus users. Not surprisingly, the cost benefits were very obvious. What i found particularly arresting was the suggestion of using only 1 to 3 minute long videos for teaching purposes. I would have thought that Ten minute videos would prove very effective. But apparently, yale students have difficulty viewing high quality content for more than a couple of minutes!!

See this slideshow for the complete report.

Screencasting and Podcasting: Experience of the Yale Medical Library

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: cla yale)

- Imaging technologies, Connectivity and the markets.-

Let the commoditization of medicine begin! | Trusted.MD Network

I was tempted to read this article, though the headlines(COMMODITIZATION of medicine) don't appeal to the Human rights aspect of my personality. I find the choice of word very cynical and it brings to question the motives of the author. But the services he describes are definitely noteworthy.

I believe the author talks about providing the best radiology service in the most cost-effective manner. Looked at it this way, the services provided by Nighthawk teleradiology services is a boon for patients.It has the potential for bringing down the costs of healthcare. Any measure taken to reduce health costs will benefit the patient, even if the healthcare is being provided via third party ( Insurance) paying for the service.

Telerays.com is a new service allowing bidding for radiology services. You can understand more about the process here.

Since radiology involves interpretation of digital images, it makes real sense to get the best doctors at the best prices (wherever they may be) by making good use of technology.. Simple economics here. And, i dont think quality will really suffer. After a few possible initial hiccups and pruning out of "sub-standard" opiners, I am sure only quality work will prevail.Quality radiologists will always get work, wherever they are. Teleradiology services now being woven into this kind of business model shall definitely be a positive step towards health rights.After all, "TIMELY, best possible quality healthcare for all without discrimination" is what health rights is all about, in essence.

Wonder when will a chunk of pathology services go this way. Very soon, i believe.

Imaging technologies, Connectivity and the markets.

Let the commoditization of medicine begin! | Trusted.MD Network


I was tempted to read this article, though the headlines(COMMODITIZATION of medicine) don't appeal to the Human rights aspect of my personality. I find the choice of word very cynical and it brings to question the motives of the author. But the services he describes are definitely noteworthy.


I believe the author talks about providing the best radiology service in the most cost-effective manner. Looked at it this way, the services provided by Nighthawk teleradiology services is a boon for patients.It has the potential for bringing down the costs of healthcare. Any measure taken to reduce health costs will benefit the patient, even if the healthcare is being provided via third party ( Insurance) paying for the service.


Telerays.com is a new service allowing bidding for radiology services. You can understand more about the process here.


Since radiology involves interpretation of digital images, it makes real sense to get the best doctors at the best prices (wherever they may be) by making good use of technology.. Simple economics here. And, i dont think quality will really suffer. After a few possible initial hiccups and pruning out of "sub-standard" opiners, I am sure only quality work will prevail.Quality radiologists will always get work, wherever they are. Teleradiology services now being woven into this kind of business model shall definitely be a positive step towards health rights.After all, "TIMELY, best possible quality healthcare for all without discrimination" is what health rights is all about, in essence.


Wonder when will a chunk of pathology services go this way. Very soon, i believe.

Also see http://teleradproviders.com/, a complete radiology diagnostic support from Dr. Sumer Sethi

- Web 2.0, Copyrights and Plagiarism-

the Web2.0 Rights project.

Web 2.0 has changed many things. But the most profound change, IMO, is in the field of Intellectual Property Rights.

New content is being created collaboratively, from distant locations. We now have the concepts of Joint authorship and joint ownership. Joint authorship means a work produced in collaboration by two or more people, where the contribution of one is NOT DISTINCT from other collaborators.The term joint ownership refers, in general, to a situation in which two or more persons share interests in property rights.Performers rights are another important field because of easy distribution of videos online (Youtube) . Many IPR theories have not yet been tried in court, especially in use of deep linking, embedding of content and use of crowd sourced content.

When one talks of IPR, how can talk of plagiarism stay far behind?

According to Wikipedia, Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the
language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them
as one's own original work. Plagiarism is a huge problem in schools with thousands of students passing off content from the web as their own content. But it is now quite simple to detect frank plagiarism. One way is to use "" quotation marks and search within google. Advanced search features of google allow for better search of copycats.You can learn using gogle to detect internet plagiarism on this link of Marywood university Library.

You can check whether your own content is being copied elsewhere by using copyrightspot.com. You can also download free software for detection of plagiarism here.(University of Virginia).

You can access useful links to sites on Plagiarism here.

This link talks of everything related to IPR in the Web 2.0 environment. Check it out.

- Imaging techniques in Pathology-

Israel's ASI gives pathologists a vital second opinion - ISRAEL21c

-I have written previously about the subjectivity involved in the practise of Pathology. Its difficult to get two pathologists to agree on any one diagnosis if both pathologists insist on looking at the case through the prism of their own experiences.Besides, it is always tough disputing any one"s diagnosis as it is merely an opinion and reflects the Pathologists own "view" of the case.

Now, ASI (Applied Spectral Imaging), a privately held company in Israel has come up with a colorful solution for the problem. Instead of depending totally on the "morphology", ie shape and size, it provides a way to visualize the antigenic proteins present in the tissue. Using their Spectracube family of products, It allows researchers to distinguish between
different materials on a chromosome by highlighting its features with
unique colors, instead of the black dye that had been used previously. This leads to better identification in suspicious cases and the test also lends itself to reproducibility.

The company has already launched " TB Finder" in the market.In addition to TB Finder, ASI is already selling
or planning to market additional tools for pathologists, including
PathEx, as well as for morphologists, who examine protein structures
and alterations in cell structures.

The company presently promotes its products only as a backup / second opinion. But this seems to be more out of its desire not to rub the so-called "Specialists" the wrong way. Being able to corroborate one"s opinion by a scientific and a reproducible test is a tool sorely needed in the practise of Pathology. I shall not be surprised if such corroboration of opinion of a pathologist soon becomes a norm rather than an option.

All in all, a very very useful service to improve accuracy of diagnosis.