Customer Reviews

Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM): A Practical Introduction and Survival Guide

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book bridges gaps, period.

If you need to work with this standard, at very least skim this book. What it doesn't cover in detail, it provides an excellent overview of. It is a great "jumping off" point; so much so, that the language explanation alone is just shy of enough to write your own PACS software applications for the talented developer. Prior to reading this book, I did have previous experience working with DICOM, HL7 and PACS; however, after reading the book I realized how little I knew and truly understood and my shingle says "PACS Administrator".

This book is excellent for those responsible for the technical workflow of any medical imaging system or PACS. It provides a thorough history of the development of the standard and its application over time. While it aptly covers items of clinical concern like image quality, manipulation, and availability, it additionally provides a comprehensive breakdown of the "language" of DICOM. At first, many of those without backgrounds in binary/hexadecimal and software coding may find this language discussion overwhelming, but it is an invaluable read if you stick with it (just rely on your math and logic skills and don't fret the details). Finally, it addresses all current topics in the field (like teleradiology and image mobility), and provides some great real world examples and anecdotes.

For those that are more clinically oriented, there are probably more appropriately written materials, but I would still consider 1/2 of this book as required reading.

Steve
PACS Admin for Large Ortho Practice

This is a really good book, answers lots of my questions! It may be somewhat technical for a clinical person like me, but so is the subject anyway. But this is the first source of DICOM information I found, it is well-written, complete, addresses very practical problems, and I would recommend it to anyone.

I was looking for this type of book for long time. This is one of best book for understanding DICOM standard .
Highlight of the book is concise description of DICOM standard, practical advice in implementing DICOM standard.
Good narration and illustrations.

Anyone involved in DICOM should have this book. It is written in a manner such that managers, technicians, IT people, and general users can all gain useful knowledge of DICOM. What is missing from other books is the practical knowledge, the problems encountered and the solutions. This book is replete with practical anecdotes.

This is a "must-own" book for anyone who must deal with DICOM & PACS. The author does an excellent job of presenting the basics, and then adding more advanced information in a logical progression. This book replaces all others, in my opinion.

There are 18 chapters. Depending upon the background and interests of the reader, many chapters can be skimmed or skipped. This is also an excellent guide to troubleshooting a DICOM system.

I highly recommend this book.

This book completely demystified DICOM for me. If you are a programmer, IT manager, Doctor etc, and you need to know about DICOM, to get a firm understanding of it then this is the book for you!

When my boss at the medical device company where I work saw me reading this book, his first comment was, "How can a book about a standard NOT be boring?"

This book is a very comprehensive overview of the DICOM standard, but it does one important thing that prevents it from being boring: it explains the reasoning behind the standard -- why the various elements of the standard are as they should be, and sometimes even why they shouldn't be the way that they are. Numerous anecdotes of all kinds of ways NOT to assemble and use DICOM-compatible systems (all from the author's personal experience) also make for lighter reading.

I recommend this book to anyone who needs an introduction to DICOM but is overwhelmed by the thought of trying to absorb the official DICOM standard and its thousands of pages.

The author has obviously worked with DICOM for years and, more important, has experienced and understands all the gotchas. He does a great job of giving you a feel for the relevance and real-world application of each technical topic, including the gotchas, which makes the reading of a difficult subject much easier, the information really sticks. He also gives you quick refreshers as he introduces new topics which also works well. Overall, his style really clicked with the way my brain processes information, this is an outstanding effort with a difficult subject.