Features and Updates

Last modified: 4:30pm Wednesday, August 30, 1995

Attention: Other universities with or without Mosaic-based Nuclear Medicine Teaching Files

Universities with existing Mosaic Nuclear Medicine Teaching Files can currently add their cases into our Teaching File over the Internet. You can keep your cases and images on your computer and fill out a Mosaic form to establish a link from our home page to your cases, or you can enter your cases and images onto our computer using our local Mosaic entry form. You do not need a server set up on your computer to use the second method. It will be clearly marked which university is the owner of each case, and each university will have a unique password to identify themselves as a registered remote case entry site.

• Send a request to become a registered remote case entry site. Please include the following:
  • Your name and email address
  • The name you want to appear alongside your cases, such as the name of your university, hospital, or group
  • The password that you want to use
  • Some description of your Teaching File and the URL of your Teaching File's home page (if you have one)
• You need Workstation Mosaic version 2.0 or later, Macintosh Mosaic version 2.00A2 or later, or Netscape in order to use our entry forms

• The MIR Nuclear Medicine Teaching File was primarily created for medical students, residents, and attendings to use as a learning tool. Mosaic and WWW were the ideal settings for the Teaching File because they are easy to use, they are becoming more widespread, and they allow for the instant display of a well organized case, complete with all of the necessary images and information to have a meaningful review of the case.

• The main focus of the Teaching File is the case pages. They contain one or more images, along with information about the case. The "known" page lists the diagnosis and a complete discussion of the case. The "unknown" page only gives the patient's history, along with images and other relevant test data, and leaves it up to the viewer to come up with the diagnosis. The viewer can then check their diagnosis by looking at the known page. Clicking on a named study on the home page will give a list of known case pages for that study. Clicking on [unknown] on the home page will give a list of unknown case pages for its corresponding study.

• We have three lists of cases: a local list, a global list, and a followup list. The global list contains all of the cases entered by residents and attendings, and then approved by an attending for global access, here in Nuclear Medicine, and all cases entered by other Nuclear Medicine departments. It is accessible from any computer outside of MIR Nuclear Medicine. The local list contains all of the cases in the local list, as well as the cases entered here that have not been approved by an attending for global access. It is only accessible from the computers inside of MIR Nuclear Medicine. Currently, our global list is quite small. I suggest looking at the all known cases or all unknown cases lists if you are on a computer outside of MIR Nuclear Medicine. The followup list contains the beginnings of possible future cases. One or more images are available, along with some patient information. A resident or attending adds the beginnings of a case to the followup list if he or she thinks it looks promising, but the diagnosis and pathology are not decided on yet. The followup list is available only to local users.

• The searching feature at the bottom of the home page allows you to choose search criteria. The program then searches the entire Teaching File for cases that fit your criteria and displays a list of links to cases that fit your criteria for you to choose from. There are instructions and suggestions for choosing search criteria available from the search form page.

• Each known page has an option at the bottom of the page to submit a comment about the case. We ask that you only submit serious comments. There is also a general Teaching File comment submission page accessible from the bottom of this page.

• We have a fully automated case entry system (it requires a password). There is a sample entry form for users outside of MIR Nuclear Medicine to view. Remote users may also enter cases if they have a password. See the "Attention" section above for more information.