We use very, VERY expensive high resolution monitors and graphics cards (for example, see this website that I just grabbed at random, MedicalDisplaysForLess.com, a title I found somewhat humorous...:) If you are reading mammography, you have to buy even higher resolution monitors, and two of them can run $15-20,000! I guess if you get them from MonitorsForLess, they might throw in free shipping, but I doubt it!
I am not a radiologist, and I don't play one in the movies either, so my eyes are not discriminating enough to see the difference unless the monitor calibration gets completely out of whack, but the radiologists can certainly tell, so it does make a difference to them.
To be honest, my specialty is not PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System) I am responsible for the RIS (Radiology Information System) which the PACS is dependent on to get the information about the type of exam performed, who it is being performed on, who ordered the exam, when it should be done and so on.
Due to the way things are now, I find myself having to provide on-call support for PACS, and it is nerve-wracking to me, because it is not my specialty, and cross-training into it is not possible. I guess it would be like working your butt off as an orthopedic surgeon 70 hours a week, taking call, doing surgery and such, and deciding to become a neurosurgeon so you could cover for them when needed. (Okay, that is clearly an over-dramatization, but you get the idea)
But out of necessity and to maintain some level of sanity, I am trying like hell to learn that end of it on the fly. When the pager goes off at 0100 (as it did last night) and the problem is with the PACS, not the RIS, well...I am not ashamed to say it ratchets up the stress level in me by a factor of ten.
I really detest this aspect of the job. I have been working in medicine now for 26 years, the first 10 of them in clinical, now I am in informatics, and I have been on call the entire time. for at least ten out of those years, I was on call 24x7 every other week, and there were extended periods where I was the only one. I am notable in my group of acquaintances for having thrown my pager over a house at a party. When I was doing clinical, if I got paged, I was driving in to the hospital, no matter the time or the weather, and it was usually about a 2-3 hour interval before I got back home, and had to get up the next day and be at work. As clinical practices changed, and my specialty became more utilized by ER specialists, I began to get paged several times a night. It became so stressful for me that, if I was just listening to the radio or watching TV, and there was the sound of a pager in the movie or a commercial, I would flinch and literally jump.
At that point, I concluded I had to find a different line of work, it became too stressful for me, and at that point, I was fortunate enough to get in at the ground level as our hospital began the transition to digital radiology.
Now, if my pager goes off, it is still stressful, but not the same way. Granted, I cannot have my pagers (I am stupidly carrying three of them right now) set to make sound, because if I am sleeping and a pager goes off, I will literally levitate out of the bed. And that is not an exaggeration. My heart will race and pound, and it is extremely uncomfortable and a little scary. I set them all to vibrate, and keep them in a glass dish next to my bed. My heart still pounds when they vibrate, but...just a little bit.
And, hey. When I get paged, I put on my bathrobe, pad into my man-cave and turn my computer on, pick up the phone and call in. I can fix most things remotely, and the instances where I have to get dressed and jump in my car are rare indeed. This is FAR preferable to clinical call.
That said, it is a great job. With my sharing call with the PACS specialists, I am on backup call for one week (if the PACS guys get something they cannot figure out, they call me) then Primary call for a week, then two weeks off. Two weeks seems like luxury.
But most of all, the work is interesting, engaging, challenging and meaningful. I feel that what I do has a direct influence on the quality of care we give our patients, and...not everyone gets to say that in life. I'm lucky.