OPINION

'The medium is the
message. This is
mere/y to say that the
personal andsocial
consequences of any
medium - that is, of
anyextensionof
ourselves - result from
the new scale that is
introduced into our
affairs by each
extension ofourselves,
orbyanynew
technology. "
Marshall McLuhan (1911-80),
Canadianoornmunications theorist.
Urderstanding Media, (1964).

'"TIs education forms
the common mind, just
as the twig is bent, the
tree's inclined. "
AJexanderPope (1688-1744), English
satirical poet. Epistle to Cobham.

SJ Beningfield
lJBpanmStJt III R8d/tJItJgy, flItIIIIte

8t:1IUJJp 1ItJBpJt1ll, Cape Tllwn

Syou've just splashed out on a
fancy new computer system with all
the bells and whistles - CD-ROM drive,
sound card, modem, plenty of RAM
etc., and have survived the stress of
getting Windows 95 up and running
and talking to most of your hardware.
What's in it for your radiology
education? Is there any software
worthwhile parting with your hard-
earned cash for, and will it really make
you a better radiologist?Some years ago
I remember hearing an educational
expert saying that he believed that
computers were excellent for testing
knowledge but not for teaching it.Was
he correct when it comes to radiology?

To be fair to the new kid on the
block, we are only beginning to
plumb the depths of the technology.
The high technical demands of the
visual data in radiology images
stresses all but the top of the range
computer systems. Image quality on
standard PC monitors, although
reasonable, can 't hope to match that
of the standard radiograph. Colour,
video and animation have yet to be
utilised to their full potential in
multimedia radiology. Sound
reproduction is really only of direct

24 SA JOURNAL OF RADIOLOGY. March 1996

relevance in Doppler topics, although
it does also humanise and soften the
application's interface with the user.
Speed of response is a critical factor -
responses of under a second can
totally change the nature of an
interaction, transforming it from a
sluggish wade through treacle to an
exciting and stimulating interchange
of inputs and replies. Unless one uses
a really fast, RAM-crammed Pentium
and a high speed CD-ROM drive, the
tedium of waiting for images to appear
can only be usefully countered by
brewing a cup of coffee or reading a
page in Grainger and Al1ison. Three-
dimensional imaging makes especially
severe demands on computer
hardware, meaning that unless one
spends tens of thousands of rands on
state-of-the-art workstations, one
can't view these images in anything
like human-friendly form.

On the other hand, Peter Mayle
in his recently re-released "Expensive
Things" illustrates the human
tendency to be dissatisfied with
whatever one has, where nothing is
good or perfect enough, particularly
if one already has it all. This human
weakness finds fertile ground in the
computer world where speed, speed
and more speed is the ultimate goal,
driving users obsessively from one
upgrade to the next.

Computer phobia is another
hurdle which potentially isolates the
new media from a sizeable chunk of
the population. The reason for this
phenomenon must be an area ripe for
research - itis always intriguing to me
how clear the divide between
computerphobes and computer-
philesis. Yetitis odd th at even as a self-
confessed computer fan I arn seldom
drawn to spend much time at
computer exhibits at congresses. Is
this because they lack the immediate
gratification of conventional media
such as books, joumals or video, or is
one just as unlikely to sit down and
read an article on MR! of the shoulder
at a congress as to spend half an hour
going through a multimedia exhibit
on the sametopic.? Oris it because a

limited range of predetermined
interactions is likely to be available, or
that one balks at the effort of
mastering the operational basics of a
particular exhibit?

Complete searchable textbooks
on CD-ROM, such as Resnick's multi-
volume "Diagnosis of Bone and Joint
Disorders" are being released with
increasing frequency. The gamut of
list-type books is also eminently
suitable for computerisation, with
Dalmert's "Radiology Review
Manual"beingreleased on CD-ROM
inApril this year. One has to question
though, whether the purchase of
some of these isn't to fulfil a
psychological need to feel
omnipotent, to be in control of all the
information by dint of possessing it,
while suspecting that you will never
read or view most of it? I'm sure the
same often applies to textbooks.

The main advantage of software
media must be the ability to structure
sophisticated searches to produce
customised output, compared to the
more limited search permutations
with books. The ability to search
selectively with elaborate criteria is a
major benefit as seen with the
resounding success of computerised
literature searches. Being able to
interact meaningfully with
information and produce
personalised extracts of relevant
material, being able to "cut-and-paste'
selected text or images is very
convenient - I have to confess thatthe
quotes used here were lifted straight
from Microsoft's "Bookshelf'95" CD-
ROM

One of the areas which seems to
me to be especially suited to
computerisation, particularly
animation, is the principles ofMRI
physics. Although some software
packages allow the input ofsequence
parameters and show the resulting
MR! image, they do this without
delving into the physics minefield.
None to my knowledge have
capitalised on the potential of
displaying the various spin sequences

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