Wisdom

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Wisdom

[© Copyright] 12 Mar 2005 Dylan O'Donnell
CATEGORY : Portraits
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Having my self portrait online is confronting enough as it is, but I’ve outdone myself. The image is self explanatory but how I acquired it I thought was worth posting.

As time goes by laws are being relaxed in Australia to allow us greater access to our own medical records (I think) however there is still a good deal of cautiousness in the medical industry, and rightly so.. I wouldn’t want my personal info to end up in anyone’s hands .. hell, they might end up on a website or something.

The dentist was great and all too happy to give me the printout and email me copies of the files. The surprise came later. After realizing I couldn’t open the file, I called the Medical Imaging clinic to ask what kind of file it was.

I explained this to the nice, but misinformed young woman on the other end of the phone and asked her if she could tell me what kind of file it was. She told me that I would not be able to open the file as it requires ”special software” and the file is ”registered” only to the dentist they sent it to.

I figured she was referred to kind of encryption system that meant only the intended recipient could open the file. Thats great, I thought, and explained to her that I would still like a digital copy and maybe she could convert to JPEG or something since I paid good money for the x-ray and would like access to my ”digital negative” as it were.

She declined and while she offered me a print, would not let me have the digital file in any form. I wasn’t sure about this so sent the files to my circle of computer nerd friends and told them to open it. Within the hour they informed me it was a DICOM file and there is a lot of software (shareware and freeware) available to open it.

I chose OsiriX.. which seems to have built in features to export to JPEG, iPod and iDisk! I wonder how many medico’s keep their customer info on their iPods or their iDisk’s ! (internet based storage on Apple’s servers)

In the end I decided to call the clinic back just so they were aware that the filetype was DICOM, in case anybody else like me asks, and that their software aint so unique. I think she understood.

(and yes.. I will have to sell a car to pay the cost of removing these damned wisdom teeth…. wisdom is all good and well, but ignorance is bliss)

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