Code Name: AvicennaThe Future In Progress

One of my Radiology professors back in residency, a very wise man, had a saying: "The more dogmatic you get, the more likely you will be wrong."In the medical business, there is a tie for the three most important little words: "I was wrong," competes nicely with "I don't know." (If you were wondering, the four scariest words in the radiological lexicon are: "You read a scan...")The Future has a way of sneaking up on us, and occasionally biting us on the behind. In my youth, I thought for example, that age 50 was a long way off. Now I'm well into that decade of life, and the 60's are looming. As Steve Miller put it, "Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slipping', into the Future..."All this leads us to the fact that I was dead wrong about something futuristic, something I thought we wouldn't see until many years from now. Something I saw this week at RSNA at the Merge booth. I was quite adamant that it would not be possible for a computer to read scans and such for at least 5-10 years. What I saw proves me wrong, or at least indicates that being dogmatic led me down the wrong path yet again. I was blindsided by a Work In Progress titled "Code Name: Avicenna", a peek into the future at some very disruptive technology (I use that term with all due respect and awe) brought about by the new consortium between Merge, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of IBM, and IBM Watson Health.Let us speak a moment about Avicenna, whom I'm assuming is the inspiration behind the Code Name: Avicenn...
Source: Dalai's PACS Blog - Category: Radiology Source Type: blogs