It’s one of the primary goals at the heart of patient safety in radiology: balancing the need for heightened image quality with the inherent risks of radiation exposure. It’s also a goal that prompted researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School to develop some simple yet creative radiation-dose solutions.

The University of Wisconsin–Madison has about 300 different CT protocols in routine clinical use, which presents quite the management challenge. Researchers there tackled the issue with a wiki-based tool, and took to the pages of the Journal of the American College of Radiology to explain their strategy.

J. Dana Dunleavy, MD, is an interventional radiologist who loves what he does for a living. 

A perceived lack of direct patient contact makes female medical students five times less likely to choose radiology as a specialty than their male counterparts, according to the results of a Canadian study published online Jan. 13 in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

A sprinkler went on the fritz at an imaging center in upstate New York Jan. 7. The fail wasn’t epic by any means, but it was enough to shut down the center’s MR and CT schedule for several days—and to remind radiology workers to be ready for anything

As a way to cut overall imaging utilization and spending, increased patient cost-sharing via high-deductible health insurance seems to work. But the approach may not do much to help patients tell medically recommended exams from frequently wasteful ones. 

A lot of people spend a lot of money searching for relief from pain in the lower back. It turns out the surest solution may also be the cheapest.

Flattery. Nepotism. Popularity bias. The real motives driving the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s choices of Golden Globe winners? No—a few of the foibles compromising the integrity of name-based academic research, including peer-reviewed work published in medical journals.