Computer Engineer
University Of Pennsylvania Hospital
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
I worked at the University of Pennsylvania Medical school for 4 years. I was part of team of IT and medical professionals who created one of the nations first Digital Radiology systems. Our Principal Investigator, Ronald Arenson, MD received a grant from the NIH to create and investigate the effectiveness of a PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System). He hired physicians, radiology technicians, engineers and software developers and went to work.My role was the computer engineer, where I had the job to integrate all the hardware and work with the design engineers to make it all worked well on the network. I also had the opportunity to program storage routines, study questionnaires and statistical software using Fortran and SPSS languages. It was a greate experience in integrating cutting edge technology in a real world environment.In the end, our team created a clinical, operational system where a patient walked into a clinic in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, got a chest Xray. It was then transmitted to a company in Houston, TX via Satellite then back down to a dish in the parking lot of the McCormick Center in Chicago, IL and on the show floor at the RSNA. Radiologists were able to see the image on the show floor only minutes after it was take. That was quite an achievement in 1988!
