Everyone should have their own cocktail party story, especially if it can clear up confusion about you or help make you sound more interesting than you really are. I am a diagnostic radiologist, but many people incorrectly assume that I take xrays (this would be a radiologic technologist) or treat cancer with therapeutic doses of radiation (this would be a radiation oncologist). I am instead the person who sits alone in a dark room reading xrays, mammograms, ultrasounds, MRIs and CT scans. It’s less lonely and more interesting than that sounds, but it would probably make for horrendously dull reality TV. In any event, when asked about my profession, I tend to highlight the CT aspect, as most people know what it is (and have probably had at least one during their lives). And if I feel fine with how the conversation is going, I will tell my one and only cocktail party story.
The scientific research involved in the development of both CT scanning and MRI occurred at roughly the same time, but CT managed to become a routine medical test nearly 20 years before MRI did. The surprising reason for this is…..the Beatles. If not for the Fab Four, CT might have taken decades – or longer – to be in widespread use. This technological revolution is able to quickly, painlessly and accurately diagnose serious and sometimes life-threatening conditions, having replaced more invasive procedures including exploratory surgery.
In 1962, on the recommendation of an (at the time) obscure music producer named George Martin, the Beatles were signed to a recording contract by EMI, the acronym for Electronic and Musical Industries. EMI started out working with military technology and electronics. But when it purchased Capitol Records in the 1950s, it soon became a major force in popular music.
A middle-aged EMI electrical engineer named Godfrey Hounsfield lead the team that built the first all-transistor computer. Because of this success, the company gave Hounsfield the freedom to pursue his own independent research. Hounsfield conceived of a way to get xrays and computers to come together and create three dimensional images. With a little help from his musical friends (specifically four straight years of Beatles’ record sale profits kept from the taxman), Hounsfield and EMI were able to manufacture and install the first commercial CT scanner in 1971. Hounsfield won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1979, was Knighted by the British Empire in 1981 and passed away in 2004 at the age of 84. His name lives on as the Hounsfield Unit (HU), a quantitative measurement of tissue density as determined by CT. From me to you, it’s better to have something in your body with a low HU than a high one.
[Commenters are encouraged to see how many Beatles’ song titles they can find hidden in this little vignette, but no prizes are being offered]
This was originally posted in the Buffalo Grove Patch on 11/08/2011.
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