Personal Statement
"Having had the good fortune to be associated with two superb urology departments in my academic practice, I have been a uroradiologist for my entire professional career, and now hold joint appointments in radiology and urology. This association has led me to be convinced that the best clinical radiology is made possible through close and continual association with our referring clinicians. Certainly it is often true that a short written interpretation of a radiologic exam is all that is needed for the best clinical patient management, but on many occasions clinicians face dilemmas which require serious discussions with us in order to choose the right path. The more familiar we are with the specific diagnostic and therapeutic decisions they face, the better we serve them and their patients.

"To be effective, our consultations require that we know more than standard radiology and more than basic clinical medicine. We need to be critical consumers of our research literature. As technological advances continue to outstrip outcome and utility studies, we need to continually evaluate the real utility - and the occasional inutility - of the studies we must choose among, and of the information they provide. We need to know how to manage uncertainty in making clinical decisions, since uncertainty will certainly visit us often. We need to step into the shoes of the physicians who face the patient, and, if we can, into the shoes of the patients themselves, for often the wishes and emotions of the patients are the answers to diagnostic uncertainty. Finally, we need to teach these habits to our trainees and successors: As they deal with the volume and fascination of the science they must master, they need always to remember the patients who yield the pictures."