End of film era — Radiology retires last of multiviewers

Posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

The Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging ended the era of radiological film as the last of the multiviewers was retired from Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center Oct. 24.

Standing over six-feet tall, the newest and sole remaining member of a fleet of 25 multiviewers was purchased in 1997. The machine held 50 back-lit film panels, which the radiologist operated by foot pedal in order to rotate them via a conveyor belt much like a black-and-white Ferris wheel—and almost as noisy as the carnival ride. Before the conversion to digital imaging, the emergency radiology reading areas had three multiviewers. Such large viewers were especially useful for trauma patients, who might have 50 pieces of film.

“This is the sign that imaging has made the transition completely to digital,” said O. Clark West, M.D., UT Physicians radiologist and chief of emergency and trauma imaging at Memorial Hermann–Texas Medical Center.

As the rest of the hospital, and the entire Houston area, gradually switched to electronic systems, it was decided to remove the last manual film viewer to make room for computers to provide digital image viewing. Emergency radiology’s darkroom was shut down in 2005 and later converted into an office.

“This is a very large machine, and we needed the space. Plus, we do not even have the capability to make film images anymore,” Dr. West explains.

“A modern trauma CT scan has about 400 images, which would require 20 separate pieces of film spread over five film panels. A complete trauma imaging evaluation on a severely injured patient could fill half of the multiviewer. So the computer systems really are much more efficient,” Dr. West says. “Although, we still use film for teaching, hanging film on one of these old viewers is a lost art.”

— Darla Brown, Office of Communications, Medical School

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