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Abstract

I think the best description of what we do is visual creativity. There is really nothing like it in medicine. Internists watch, but mostly listen, to their patients. Surgeons have similar complex visualization skills, but they use them mechanically rather than interpretively. Many specialties rely on imaging, but from my experience, they lack much of our finesse. The most similar experience in medicine is probably pathology, but the data they input are much smaller, the breadth of diseases much narrower, and, not unimportantly, there is a marked rarity of normal studies and follow-ups in their field.