Selected Publications
Related to
Computers and Radiology
- M. Tobin:
Survey of Respondent Use of the Medical Internet and the Impact on the Patient/Physician Relationship. November, 2002.
- Why do people consult medical websites, what do they
find, and how it affects their relationship with their
physicians.
- This turned out to be a massive project, requiring
more than a year to complete.
- M. Tobin:
The Amiga Expo — The Amiga Community Survives Another Year. The New Amigans, Vol. III, Issue 1, May, 2002, pp. 14-17.
- An annual meeting of the Amiga community? Is there
anyone left? Read and find out.
- M. Tobin:
Effects of Lossless and Lossy Image Compression and Decompression on Archival Image Quality. September, 2001.
- 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.
- M. Tobin:
Creating a Web Community Physicians and Computers Vol. 18, No. 3, October, 2000, pp. 38-40.
- The story of AmiRad, the Internet Radiology community.
(with extra pictures!)
- M. Tobin:
Making Digital Photographs and Slides Without a Scanner — Part II. Amazing Computing/Amiga, submitted
- Amiga users can take advantage of new options in
digital photography.
- M. Tobin:
CamControl Software for Downloading Images from Olympus Digital Cameras. Amazing Computing/Amiga, August, 1999, pp. 16-19.
- New software facilitates image processing of digital
photographs on the Amiga computer.
- M. Tobin:
Making Digital Photographs and Slides Without a Scanner. Amazing Computing/Amiga, May, 1999, pp. 20-24.
- Thanks to dedicated programmers, Amiga users have many
options for their digital photographic needs.
- M. Tobin:
SMPTE Evaluation of Teleradiology Using Data Compression and a Standard Modem. M.D. Computing, 16(2), March/April, 1999, pp. 55-59.
- Before medical images can be sent from hospital to physician
home for interpretation, the entire system must be tested
for image quality and integrity. Standard test images can
be used for this evaluation.
- In order to keep download times reasonable, the figures used
for this online version are smaller and of less quality
than those used in the original article.
- M. Tobin:
Amiga ’99 St. Louis — An Analysis
- The Amiga ’99 meeting in St. Louis may be an historic
turning point for the Amiga. Read the article and see why.
- M. Tobin:
Teleradiology — A Personal View Physicians and Computers, Vol. 16, No. 1, November, 1998, pp. 23-29.
- Sending medical images via computer for remote diagnostic
interpretation holds great promise, but there are pitfalls
both in the selection of equipment and in the integration of
this new technology into the hospital environment.
- M. Tobin:
Interactive Image Viewing on the Internet with the Amiga. Amazing Computing / Amiga, June, 1998, pp. 32-38, 42-43.
- Using a teleradiology system based on the Amiga,
two physicians, many miles apart, can see, annotate, etc.
the same medical image at the same time.
- Tobin, M.:
Reading PDF and Postscript Files. Amazing Computing / Amiga, February, 1998, pp. 34-38.
- Amiga users can read the ubiquitous Adobe (tm) Acrobat
PDF files even though Adobe itself has not developed a
reader specifically for the Amiga.
- Tobin, M.:
Amiga PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). Amazing Computing / Amiga, February, 1997, pp. 34-37.
- Medical reports and images can be encrypted. This can
protect patient confidentiality in the age of teleradiology.
- Storing encrypted patient data, including images, on the
Internet, could make this important information accessible to
a physician anywhere in the world. This could benefit patients,
especially in an emergency.
- Unfortunately, many “links” in this article no longer work as
of 12/24/1999. This is inevitable as people move and companies
change hands.
- Tobin, M.:
Amiga Users Target the Web. Physicians and Computers, Vol. 14, No. 1, August/September, 1996. pp. 46-50.
- I have always enjoyed describing and demonstrating the strengths
of the Amiga operating system.
- I hear people complain that there is no real alternative to
Microsoft.
- I beg to differ.
- Tobin, M., Gerrard, P.:
X-RAYS and Digital Media. July, 1996.
- Travellers seem to have always been concerned about the
potential damage of airport x-rays on computers and digital
storage media.
- In this 1996 study, I exposed data-filled floppy disks in my
carry-on luggage to the radiation of an airport x-ray scanner.
I even had a disk in my shirt pocket as I passed the metal
detector. I then checked the disks for data loss and early
deterioration.
- Such an experiment would be unthinkable in the post 9/11
era.
- Tobin, M.:
“Chest Net” — An Amiga Based Neural Network for Radiology. Amazing Computing for the Commodore Amiga, November, 1995, pp. 26-292.
- A neural network, when properly trained, can make an “educated”
guess about a situation it has never seen.
- In “Chest Net,” the neural network was trained with the
radiographic and clinical findings corresponding to several
different diseases. It was then presented with a new set of
findings and asked to guess the identity of the disease.
- A neural network approach to diagnosis is in contrast to an
algorithmic approach and also to a
“database of information” approach, as exemplified by “Basically Bone.” (Please see below.)
- Tobin, M.:
“Basically Bone” An Amiga Based Radiology Teaching Application. Amazing Computing for the Commodore Amiga, July, 1995, pp. 20-22.
- This a keyword searchable medical image database developed
with the (then) commercially available program Graphic Recall.
- Tobin, M.:
Searching Medical Literature Through Online Services. Amazing Computing for the Commodore Amiga, June, 1993, pp. 36-37, 40-41, 89.
- It is amazing to realize that even a short time ago, doing a
medical literature search on one’s own was a challenge. Once
the National Library of Medicine got on the World Wide Web,
everything became easier.
- This article, however, was written in 1993 when the Internet
was largely non-graphical and finding information involved
knowing about gopher, archie, and veronica.
- In 1993, Bulletin Board Services or BBS’s were common and
access to the Internet for many if not most users was via a
gateway provided by the BBS.
- BBS’s typically had non-graphical interfaces. For those
wanting a graphical interface and other features, companies
like Compuserve were there to provide it.
- How times have changed!
- Tobin, M.:
Phasar 4.08 — Getting Your Life in Order. Amiga News, March, 1993, pp. 1,2,8.
- Although this article really has nothing to do with Radiology
except to keep track of my dwindling salary and rising expenses,
I decided to include this article because so few people outside
the Amiga community realize that there are financial software
packages available for the Amiga.
- Indeed, there is a whole bunch of software available for the
Amiga including databases, spreadsheets, word processing
programs, paint programs, games, and so on.
- Although I wrote this article in 1993, I still use Phasar to
keep my finances organized.
- Tobin, M.:
Teleradiology — The Amiga in Medicine. Amazing Computing for the Commodore Amiga, January, 1993, pp. 52-55.
- While I was sifting through my publications in an effort to
choose which ones to upload to my website, I was absolutely
amazed to find out that I was writing about teleradiology
as early as 1992 as it is only recently that this technology
is becoming widespread.
- The method of image capture I was advocating in 1993 was video
capture, which indeed, would still be adequate for most types
of radiology imaging studies.
- I did mention, however, that flatbed scanners with transparency
adapters had great potential, but they were rather expensive at
the time and I had no experience with them.
- At present, high resolution flatbed scanners are used to
capture non-digital imaging studies such as x-rays and can be
used to digitize any transparency film including those of MRI
(magnetic resonance imaging), CT (x-ray computed tomography),
US (ultrasound) and NM (nuclear medicine).
- Tobin, M.:
Amigas, Mac’s and IBM’s in the Medical Environment. Amiga News, January, 1993, pp. 4-6.
- It is always interesting to go back and re-read one’s insights
and predictions from five years ago.
- The basic prediction that computers would play an ever increasing
role in medicine has come true, with PC’s leading the way. Mac’s
and Amigas could have grabbed a significant share of the market
but failed to do so.
- Read the article and go back mentally to 1993. Was Microsoft’s
and Intel’s dominance inevitable or could some decisions have been
made by their competitors which would have changed everything?
- Tobin, M.:
Back to Basics — Selecting a Word Processing Program. Amiga News, January, 1993. pp. 19-20.
- It is hard for young people to understand how difficult writing a
term paper was pre-computer.
- For us older folks who have seen computers grow from infancy,
it is hard for us to remember how primitive word processing
programs used to be but yet how much easier to use and faster
than the bloated word-processors on the PC today.
- Interestingly, I still use ProWrite for essentially all of
my correspondence. It was my first word processing program
and I believe I bought my first version around 1989!
- It is difficult for PC users to understand, but in the land
of the Amiga, users have a choice among several
excellent word processors — and for that matter — almost
every other class of program that can be made to run on the
Amiga. We are not stuck having to use bloated, buggy Microsoft
software.
- Tobin, M.:
Multi-Media Authoring — Getting Started. Amiga News, September, 1992, p. 17.
- As comedian Jimmy Durante used to say, “Everyone wants to get
into the act!”
- Creating multi-media presentations — and web pages — looks
like fun and indeed it is.
- But before you embark on your quest for the all-time greatest
presentation, please read this light-hearted article first.
- Looking back on this article from the hindsight of December,
1999, this article and many of the others in this list, seem
almost prophetic. There are so many websites, but how many
are truly worth visiting?
- Tobin, M.:
Amiga Stars at Yet Another Medical Convention. Amiga News, September, 1992, p. 1, 16.
- From time to time, I exhibit Amiga applications at medical
meetings.
- It is an honor to have a project accepted for presentation.
It is equivalent to a publishing an article in a peer-reviewed
medical journal.
- I have collected many photos from my various Amiga presentations and show them in my
“Pictures at An Exhibition” area. (My apologies to Mussorgsky for using the name of one his beautiful musical pieces.)
- Tobin, M.:
Amiga Stars at INFORAD. Amiga News, March, 1992. pp. 1-2.
- This was the first of my Amiga computer exhibits at medical
conventions.
- It was extremely successful and led to my Nuclear Medicine
Teaching File being placed on exhibit at the National Library
of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland.
- Remember to check out pictures from the
exhibits I presented.
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