Is Teleradiology a Faustian Bargain?
Teleradiology is a powerful tool, says Barry D. Pressman, M.D., but its accelerating use threatens to make radiologists strangers in their own hospitals, put group practices at risk during contract renewal, and marginalize radiologists within the medical community at large. Revolutionary though it may be, Pressman says, teleradiology also may have the unintended consequence of reducing the stature of its practitioners by turning them into faceless, rootless, interchangeable “commodities.” When radiologists lose, the discipline itself will inevitably suffer, says the chair of the Department of Imaging and chief of Neuroradiology and Head and Neck Radiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
