Free source for MRIs Xrays CTs

Free MRI CT X-ray resources.

• LUMEN Cross Sectional Tutorial

Sample



Click Here

• Interactive Atlas of Anatomy

sample



Click here

• xray2000 Image Base

sample



Click here

More free sources:

• Learning radiology
• Wayne State University (anatomy of the skull base and all kinds of MRIs)
  
• Diagnostic Imaging Atlas
• Michigan State University- The Human Brain Atlas
• MRIs from Harvard Medical School (screen print below)
  

Even more sources:

• Chest CT and Cross-sectional anatomy
• Chest X-ray
• Introduction to Chest Imaging
• Cardiothoracic Imaging Yale University School of Medicine
• Among all the amazig free resources the one that really stood out was the Yale University School of Medicine Cardiothoracic Imaging service. Which you can visit by clicking HERE. You can go through Images by: Case, Technique, Anatomy, View, etc. They provide small cases or explanations on the right side of the images. Most images are labeled so you do not need to go crazy looking for what you are supposed to be looking at!
  

Here is a screen print of it:



Note: if you use any other resources please share them with us in the comments section.


Related posts: Free MRIs

The Girl Who Silenced The World For 6 min at the UN

Have a look at how some people are working for change from a young age.





What are your thoughts?

Just Studying Pharma :)

Nothing to say tonight. Just studying endocrine pharmacology. Wish me good luck :)

Student Friendly Antibiotics Lecture

These days I am studying for my pharmacology final exam. The exam will cover CNS, GI, Antimicrobial, Respi, Endocrine, ...

The part that I have been having especially hard time with is the antibiotics part. Coincidentally, I came across this slides lecture on the USMLE252 blog (a new blog that I have been planning on introducing but I just had no time). I found the presentation very helpful, simple, and easy to follow, and most importantly student friendly.

If you still don't have your antibiotics mastered, do have a look at it!



To visit the blog Click Here

Parents, Open Your Eyes!!!

Have a look at what this ******* *** **** is doing to his students in a class room at school.



Parents, for God's sake, OPEN YOUR EYES. You would not believe how many sick teachers there are out there. Protect and take good care of your children. Money spent on good quality education is money well spent, I swear to God.

I wish this teacher's hand and leg breaks!

Medical Schools In Egypt by an Insider

Yesterday I came across a series of articles written by a fellow blogger which opened up my wounds. If I had some spare time right now I would have gave him a hand with writing and helped him expand the list of disappointments. I'll probably do that later on. Anyhow, In this article he points out some annoying phenomenons in the Egyptian medical school systems. Have a look at it and let me know what you think.

I've been learning at one of the big public universities in Egypt for like 3 years now (medical school), and sadly, all what I've been seeing is corruption. Let's put these in points to be clear — '10' is enough for now:

1. The number of students in a year (i.e course or grade) is not less than 800! Need I say more?! How would such a huge quantity leave any chance for serious or useful learning? All of these are to attend lectures in one or 2 lecture rooms! Imagine how communication would be between the lecturer and the students, esp. those at the rear.
2. Per grade, there are 12 practical sections (labs). i.e. The 800 students (for instance) will be divided upon 12 sections making around 66 students per section! Still a very big number, especially for a pure practical education like medical one.
3. In the 'practical' sections, everything is being taken except practical stuff! Yes. They give you academical stuff that anyone could get from a book, or from attending the lectures. So why would students attend them? They are obligated to do so. Why? cause your name is written down every section you attend, and if you had many absences at the end of the year, you'd fail!
4. More than half of the students go to those known as private tutors for a relatively pricy costs. Poor students cannot go to those, for sure. And guess what.. who are those private tutors? They are the very academic doctors at the school!!
5. The labs are very much lacking equipments and essentials. Sometimes you can't find a spare microscope for yourself. One of the rooms I used to attend at in my first year had no working ceiling lamps.
6. We have to buy books written by the education staff in school in order to not be put in their BlackList. Once you buy the books, you write down your signature (or name). This means you're saved. What if you don't need those book? What if they suck and you just don't want them? What if you are poor and can't afford their price?! There many alternatives that are much better than such books (which are copied from international sources, by the way).
7. The practical books are being shared by students for copying/pasting purposes if you know what I mean. You get a friend's book, and just copy what's in it in yours. This is how practical education goes here.
8. The Anatomy and Pathology museums simply suck. The specimens are like 50 years old. You just can't see anything. I remember one day I was there looking for the 'Heart'. After long searching, a friend of mine directed me to a brown glob. When I asked him what it is, he simply said 'It's the heart!'.
9. There is nothing as MCQ sort of exams in our school (and all universities). After more than 50 years of international usage of that type, they're still reluctant as to use it or not. Heck! They still use the 'write-what-you-know-in-not-less-than-3-pages' strategy.
10. In the library, you can't just walk around freely between books and check what you want to read easily. There are guys standing by the book shelves. You have to know the title of the book you want. You can't browse it before taking it. Once the guy get a book out of the shelf, it's the one you are to borrow. No compromises. Of course you have to sign a borrowing policy,…etc too…

Now that I've just finished my practical medical examinations (or let me name it the so-called practical exams), I think I have some points of corruption in my head that need to get out.

First, I just don't understand why we do need to memorize all the shapes and looks of snails, and worms in the science of Parasitology. Aren't we supposed to be doctors in the future, and not lab workers?! I just don't get it. Diagnosis and Treatment of parasitic infections are more than enough for a medical student. Anyways, that was the first exam. And as usual, there isn't a specific time for the exam to start at. You can arrive at 8 am, but not enter before 10. Sometimes I go a little bit late (like 9:30) to find that they have finished. Random stuff like that makes you confused.

Then, when you make your way to the lab to actually take the exam, you will be randomly seated or just kept standing in front of a jar, slide, or a specimen, which is numbered. There are other guys and girls too, and everyone stands in front of a thing. Oh I forgot.. you pay L.E. 2 for your examination paper! OK, not a big deal. The instructor then comes to you, say some instructions, and then the exam starts. We have to identify the thing, and then type down its name, description,..etc on the paper. Then the guy says 'Change..!', so everyone moves to the next thing. But on what basis does that instructor tells us to move? He doesn't look at his watch at all (if he even has one at all). Does he randomly say so? Sadly, it seems this is what happens.

The next exams had written/academical parts in them. Aren't they practical exams? Why do they do that? I don't know, but it seems the staff is obsessed with academical parts — a lot of it — because seemingly, this is the only thing they're good at, for it's easily memorized, and the mind doesn't contribute to anything of it. Plus, that way, they fill up a lot of questioning space that they do not know any other way to fill, for the practical stuff is very limited.

Another day In the Pathology exam: there is so much injustice, because each group is examined on a group of different specimens and slides. And it's well-known that there is a wide fluctuation in difficulty throughout the pieces. Plus, who still use live specimens for examination? Isn't there an old innovation called 'The Computer'? Why wouldn't they just let us take the test on PCs?

Sometimes you find that the view is blurry in a microscope, you try to adjust the lenses, mirrors (yeah, they still provide the non-electric light microscope),…etc. This wastes a lot of time, while the God-damned guy is shouting 'Change, Change..!'.
What's definite is that really.. a lot of things need a HUGE change.




In my medical school, most of the medical schools in the country, and even all other faculties and universities, there is a very important opportunity to work in them, as a part of the teaching staff, contrary to working in the world outside, either in a hospital, clinic, or otherwise. That act is called: Ta’yeen. And when you first get your job in there you’re called a Mo’eed. After some time you become a Prof. Assistant (or a lecturer), then a Professor.

The advantage of this profession over working outside is that:

1. You start working as soon as you graduate.
2. You get paid at least 5 times you’d get outside.
3. You can easily register and succeed in your Master and Phd degrees.
4. It’s a very point of social power within a mentally-retarded society.
5. As you ascend in the teaching ladder, you become more important, you get paid more, and finally you become a doctor who writes books (mostly steals them from international prints) and sell them. You become accredited as a holy figure who doesn’t make mistakes, while in reality you’re just a piece of #$!@ who has been wasting more time than others in the department.
6. You kick other people’s and students’ a$$es as you like and whenever you like (Aren’t you a holy figure?! You do what you want).

The disadvantages while you’re still a Mo’eed are:

1. You teach students as if you’re an 8th-grader teacher while you’re supposed to be a doctor who works in a hospital or a clinic.
2. You are treated like a pig by your employers and higher doctors (see No. 6 above). No objection, cause if you did so, you’d be fired very easily. Plus, you need to move on to get all those advantages mentioned above.
3. You see all people of the society praising you while you know deep inside that you’re nothing. This builds up tension and insecurity in your mind.

Now let’s skip to the main corruption part. Since, like I’ve just said, being a Mo’eed is a very critical and important thing to most of the people (since most of the people are mentally-retarded here), the students would kill themselves to be Mo’eeds. And since it’s very hard to be so (you need very high grades), corruption makes the whole thing very easy. I’ll put them down in points below:

• Professors/Doctors who were - one day - Mo’eeds put their sons and relatives in the league, making them Mo’eeds too, by money (called Wasta), or personal recommendation.
• Inside the test paper correction rooms scary things happen. Certain papers are edited and given higher marks, while others are just ignored.
• In the oral examination rooms, some students get full marks without saying a word because their father/relative works in the faculty. (Sorry, they do speak,.. but somethings like “Good morning, Sir” — quite enough I guess).
• Mo’eeds pay money to professors to let them give lectures in the main lecture room. This way they become more popular, get more reputation, giving them greater chances to give private tutors (another form of paid corruption coming in Part 4) to the students.

Stay tuned for Part 4. I’m not gonna stop until I release all what I’ve got.


Dr. Haisook

Here are links to the original article:

Part one
http://drhaisook.wordpress.com/2006/03/21/corruption-in-universities-of-egypt/
Part two
http://drhaisook.wordpress.com/2006/05/01/corruption-in-universities-of-egypt-part-2/
Part three
http://drhaisook.wordpress.com/2006/05/09/corruption-in-universities-of-egypt-part-3/


I know you all came from/go to schools all around the world. What types of stupidity do you/did you go through during medical school?
I should probably start a series about this kind of stuff. The only way to fix a problem is to point it out first, right? What do you think?

Core Character Traits For Family Medicine

From the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors
Annals of Family Medicine 6:278- (2008)

"Character is the trump card. It doesn’t matter what your USMLE scores are if you lack the character to be a family physician."

What are the character traits that make a good family physician? The AFMRD Board came up with the following:

1. "Excellent interpersonal skills, compassionate, good work ethic, enthusiasm to learn, maturity, honesty, and a sense of humor."
   
2. "Character traits for a good FP: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent; actually that’s what I memorized to be a good Boy Scout, but most of it applies to family medicine as well."
   
3. "There are 2 bottom-line principles of character that relate to work ethic: commitment to patients and commitment to colleagues. Representing the ‘view from the trenches,’ nothing is more infuriating to residents than colleagues who don’t carry their weight. Whatever we can do to filter out weak/questionable commitment during the screening process is time well spent."
   
4. "Character is what you do when the lights are off and no one is looking."

Something I found really interesting in the article (this part you can find in the PDF file provided) is:

"How do you judge character from ERAS and your computer?

1. Google them. You just never no what you may find.

5. Previous demonstration of service work. Have they waited tables, served as a nurse’s aide, worked in a nursing home?

8. Don’t write off a poor USMLE record if everything else points to quality. Are poor scores accompanied by evidence of commitment to remediation?

9. What was the level of participation in service related activities? “I place more value on someone who held a leadership or management position than someone who just showed up. I’m also most impressed with someone who recognized a need in the community and actually founded a new program.”

12. Google them again right before you rank them."

Read full article

Core Character Traits For Family Medicine (PDF)

Note: Thanks to dokidok from USMLE MD blog for pointing out this article.

How To Create A Study Plan For The USMLE

I am happy to introduce the bran new E-book:

How To Create A Study Plan For The USMLE


by askdoc


A 28 page guide


Download here

Medical Podcast Collection for Medical Students

Honestly I am new to podcasts. I have started using them just recently. But I have come across some very interesting ones. Please, if you follow any podcasts or know of some intersting ones please leave a link to it in the comments section and I will add it to this post.

Thanks for your time :)

Update (June 1 2008)

Here are some podcasts that I follow

• Johns Hopkins Medicine Podcasts
• 60 Sec. Science
• 60 Sec. Psych
• Skeptoid
• MicrobeWorld Radio
• ...
  

World Wide Telescope

What is WWT?

The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope—bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.

WorldWide Telescope is created with the Microsoft® high performance Visual Experience Engine™ and allows seamless panning and zooming around the night sky, planets, and image environments. View the sky from multiple wavelengths: See the x-ray view of the sky and zoom into bright radiation clouds, and then crossfade into the visible light view and discover the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years ago.

Note: The program is still in beta and so it does not always run smoothly. Man, Google set the standards really high!

Read more
Podcast about WWT
Download

Reasons Not to Become a Doctor

Reasons Not to Become a Doctor

Forbes
Medicine
5/5/2008
Tara Weiss

"No one ever said being a doctor was easy. School and training go on seemingly forever; once graduation arrives, doctors work long hours and are faced with life-and-death decisions daily."

"But there were rewards. For decades, doctors earned hefty paychecks, had autonomy and respect. But those benefits are fading, and as a result, so is the number of doctors. Within the next 15 years, the United States will experience a shortage of between 90,000 to 200,000 physicians, according to the recently published Will the Last Physician in America Please Turn Off the Lights: A Look at America's Looming Doctor Shortage."

"If you think there's a long wait for an appointment now, it could be nothing compared with 15 years down the road. The three co-authors of Will the Last Physician in America Please Turn Off the Lights, all from the physician-staffing firm Merritt, Hawkins and Associates, say the wait will jump to three to four months or more to see a doctor for a non-emergency, and a routine doctor's visit will cost two to three times what it does now--whether you are insured or not, they say."

"We used to have a lot of respect for doctors, but now they seem like easy targets," says Phillip Miller, an author of Will the Last Physician in America Please Turn off the Lights. "There's a perception among patients that, 'I went to a doctor's appointment and he was 45 minutes late. He's probably on the golf course or driving his Mercedes.' The truth is, they're probably busy with patients."

"The Association of American Medical Colleges projects that America needs a 30% annual increase in medical-school enrollment in order to keep up with need for doctors. In 2012, compared with 2002, medical-school enrollment will be up 21%."

"But for potential physicians, there is a future of looming medical-school debt, which is higher than ever. Students who graduate from a public medical school have a median debt of $100,000; private-school students graduate with a median debt of $135,000, according to a 2003 study by the Association of American Medical Colleges. Compare that with 1984, when median debt for public-school graduates was $22,000 and private-school students was $27,000."

Read More

Thanks to Lonely Coyote from Medical Student Musings for pointing out the article.

Interview with both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs

This is a rare and very interesting interview with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. It has some heart full and truthful moments.

Part 2:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Scf6dV4FSf8

You can find all the other parts through the last link. Do let me know what you think.

A Half-Ton Man

Half Ton Man Documentary

I am sure you have seen so many morbidly obese people and patients in your life but this is absolutely unbelievable. This poor guy weighs almost half a ton!

Source of half ton man video: Google Videos.

Medicine 2.0 Carnival # 24

Welcome to the 24th edition of the Medicine 2.0 Carnival.

"We believe that the new generation of web services will change the way medicine is practiced and health care is delivered."

Because you are all very busy people, I'll try not to take much of your time. In no particular order, here are a few of this week's Medicine 2.0 articles:

· Using Virtual Telepathology to Train Pathology Residents (Digital Pathology Blog)

· Prescription Drugs, Health 2.0 and the eDrugSearch.com Community - Cary Byrd (Health 2.0)

· A tale of two cities: e-Health and Consumer Health World (Health blog)

· Test Driving Health 1.0 Startup - iGuard Gives Full Disclosure (Health Management RX)

· How to use a Windows Mobile phone to listen to medical podcasts? (Clinical Cases and Images)

· Telemedicine could eradicate many expensive ED visits (huliq)

· Ask experts on-line (Medical 2.0)

· Introducing students to RSS (Science of the Invisible)

· Microsoft Common User Interface for Health Applications--Take 1.3 (Health blog)

· Use of Wireless Devices by Physicians and in Hospital Settings (Canadian EMR)

· Introducing The Efficient MD Wiki (Efficient MD)

· Health 2.0 - Clinical Trials (e-Health)

· Web 2.0 Business Trends (Health2Zero)

· Twittering at MLA 2008 (David Rothman)

· My Medical Career: Serving Medical Students (Science roll)

· Free MD - Ask the virtual doctor (High Light Health 2.0)

· An Excellent Podcast on Fitness and Medicine (Medical Pills)

· An Introduction to Several Web 2.0 Tools (My M.D. Journey!)

The next edition of Medicine 2.0 will be hosted by Sandra Porter at Discovering Biology in a Digital World on June 1st 2008. To read previous editions, check out Medicine 2.0's Homepage.

Till next time, take care.
Your Host,
YS

A note from First Aid for USMLE Step 1

Behavioral Science, Ethical situation:

"A terminally ill patient requests physician assistance in ending his life"

Appropriate response:

"... Physicians may, however, prescribe medically appropriate analgesics that COINCIDENTLY shorten the patient's life."


WHAT???!!! are you kidding me?!

Q From A Reader

Question:

"Hello...I just read your post on "UK closes its doors to foreign physicians". Let me introduce my self: I'm an IMG from XXXX who dislikes medical system in her country.....and I know US health system sucks!.....but it's better for Physicians compared with my country...you know?......In my country you can access to a "doctor" for only 2 dollars, yeah....2 dollars., but they are like little stores operating in the franchise system,...you go, you paid the appointment (only 2 dollars) but you have to pay for medicines in their stores....really bad meds, and all this discredit so much more our career.....oh well

I'm preparing for Step 1.....but you know, these articles, comments, and news really hit me down...really!!!!

And no surprising the today's news Recesion in American Economy!!!!!

I hope we can achieve our dreams, don't give up.....What about another country?...Have you ever investigate in the Australian Medical Council?.....Where are you from mate?

how are the steps going on?-.......did you take S1?

I'm preparing for it....my elegibility is oct-dec.....,, but I need some motivation to really really enhance my preparation, what about you....can you give some tips to discharge or ignore those articles, and keep going?.....hahaha...really I need them....."

Answer:

The article is meant to be an eye opener not a motivation breaker! I know a lot of people whom when asked about specialty they say: “oh, Ill go to America, Canada, UK, Germany… you know its free in Germany … bla bla bla” and they do not know what they are talking about.

Once you know that one of the major other choices you once had is gone you should focus better on the other alternatives. Give the USMLEs all you have because you may not have any other places to go. And remember that no matter how tough it gets to pursue a career in the US they will always need foreign physicians to fill in the gaps of primary care. In fact, every year almost 50% of the IMGs whom apply for residency are accepted.

Regarding health care systems, many countries don’t have any health care systems in the first place! I know it is terrible in many countries. And that is why many physicians travel. They simply cannot change the system where they are and they choose to work somewhere with a more reasonable one.

I am currently preparing for USMLE Step 1. I hope Ill sit for the exam in Sep.

Regards!

Garbage Crisis

For sometime, I have been reluctant to share some pictures I took, near where I live, of trash accumulating in the area. I thought it would be of no interest to anyone other than it being gross in the first place! But today after hearing about the garbage crisis in Naples Italy on the news, I thought we must put the problem in the spot light. Here are a few pictures from the ones that I took.









Now here are a couple pictures from Naples, Italy. They are not my own. I found them on Google Images and they are published on several blogs.

Mechanism of Atopic diseases as Asthma

I was just reading in my Medical Microbiology and Immunology book by Levinson and Jawetz, and I came across this interesting hypothesis explaining why atopic disorders such as asthma might occur, and I thought you might find it interesting.

"It is estimated that up to 40% of people in the United States have experienced an atopic disorder at sometime in their lives. The incidence of allergic diseases such as asthma, is increasing markedly in the developed countries of North America and Europe. One hypothesis that might explain this increase is that parasite burden is low in these countries.

IgE evolved as a host defense against those organisms. But in developed regions where the parasite burden is low, IgE is available to cause allergic diseases."

Now isn't that interesting?!! 8)

Web 2.0 101

Do you feel a little behind regarding all the new web services and bubbles. Do not worry. Here are small video guides to the big things on the net at the moment.

What are Wikis, like wikipedia?




What is Twitter?



What are blogs, Like My MD Journey Blog?



What are podcasts?



What are social networks, like FaceBook?



What is RSS, Subscribing?



What is social bookmarking?

Helpful USMLE Step 1 Threads from Prep4USMLE Forums

• Websites helpful for USMLE Step 1 preparation
  
• Compiled USMLE Step 1 exam experiences
• 2008 USMLE Step 1 Study Plan Discussion
• Audio Lecture by Dr. Daughtery titled: "Exam Preparation Strategy"
• Huge list of mnemonics
• Are Kaplan lecture notes enough for USMLE Step 1? (two)
• I failed Step 1 three times, what am I missing here? what should I do? - ASKDOC
• Three digit score, two digit score, percent, percentile !!! can you please clarify?
• Can anyone answer 100% of USMLE Step1 questions correctly?
• Where can i find a 6 week Step 1 study schedule?
• Its seems like everyone is scoring 99 on USMLE Step1, is that true?
• Kaplan Med. Essentials vs. First Aid for Step 1, which should i use?
• How can I upload Dr. Goljan's audio lectures to my iPod?
• What materials are there by Dr. Goljan?
• Kaplan Step 1 DVDs take too long, do all of them have to be watched?
• Has USMLE Step 1 exam content really change?

Talking about Blogging

There are a few things that I would like to share with or ask about fellow bloggers.

-I already mentioned that I secured a domain: prep4md.com ... are you considering securing your own domains? it just costs about 10 bucks a year.

-Concerning google Adsense, I have already called it "Add cents" previously because of the extremely low revenues. Surprisingly, a few days ago I had two click on my Ads that were worth $2.5! That never happened before. Are you earning good amounts from them on your site? ... those of you whom do not have these Ads on your sites, are you considering them?

-Something else that I have been thinking about is whether I should continue blogging anonymously or not. There are +ves and -ves to doing so. Some well known medical student bloggers are blogging officially as: Bertalan from Scienceroll, Kindra from Island Med Student, and Graham from Over My Med Body. What should I do? continue blogging anonymously or just go public?

-Those of you using Blogger Commenting platform know very well how stupid and inefficient it could be sometimes. I came across this new commenting platform, through 6yearmed blog, called JS-Kit. It is Much much easier to use. Its faster, more efficient, and most importantly more user friendly. Please try it out, and let me know if you prefer it on the old one. Blogger users, you should consider trying it out too.


Let me know what you think :)

My Own Domain :-)

Just today I got my own domain. Actually the guy who owned it contacted me and told me that I can have it if I was interested. And I said SURE. So he pushed it to me! And now it is all mine :-)

You can reach my site through:

prep4md.com

prep4md.net

prep4md.blogspot.com