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Brendon Nafziger, DOTmed News Associate Editor | November 29, 2011
U. Joseph Schoepf, with the Medical University of South Carolina, observed that, as radiology rotations in medical school are rarely mandatory, "the exposure of a general physician to medical tests might be equal to the general public."
Cynthia McCollough, a medical physicist with Mayo Clinic, agreed that the radiological community needs to do more to educate both doctors and the public. "I get surprised by some of the questions I get, even from the general physicians (at Mayo)," she said at the talk.
According to the study, the target of any future radiation education campaigns should be doctors, as they are still patients' primary source of information when it comes to making medical decisions. Surprisingly, what with the plethora of a medical websites, the Internet ranked rather low in the public's knowledge-gathering hierarchy. "Websites, mass media, were really not high yield for patient information," said Dr. Marilyn Siegel, professor of radiology and pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine. (Web MD and Google, for instance, were the trusted info source for only 2 percent of those surveyed.)
The study, involving a random digital dial of U.S. adults aged 18 and older, ran between Oct.2-23. There were 1,015 respondents.
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