Reading Room
Vo l . V
No. 1
Winter 2007
Department of Radiology
At first glance, a clinic waiting room would not appear to be the ideal habitat
for a clown fish that looks a lot like the star of a certain hit movie. But the
radiology reception area at Children’s Hospital Boston at Waltham has
proved to be just fine. There, “Nemo” and his piscine pals have a swimmingly good deal: a beautiful tank whose lights brighten and dim
to simulate day and night; human caretakers who treat them to
Cover
Story
Finding Nemo in a Suburban
Radiology Suite
ocean delicacies from
From the Chief
the staff-room freezer;
By George A. Taylor, MD
and—best of all—chil-
A children’s hospital is a special place,
dren who squeal with
and, naturally, I’m particular to ours.
recognition when they spy
There’s a happy energy here that visitors
their fluorescent friends.
notice the minute they step into our
lobby. It’s a hopeful spirit—one that
buoys up sick children, soothes worried
parents and motivates our talented
Nemo’s aquatic wonderland is just
Where’s Nemo? His pals enjoy their habitat in the new
radiology suite at Children’s Hospital Boston at Waltham.
one of the many amenities built into
the 16,000-square-foot radiology suite
medical teams to give their very best to
patients every single day.
that opened in the Waltham clinic in July 2006. Everything about the facility—from the
Nancy Drinan, our new (and first)
nature-themed décor to the multicolored ceiling lights that distract children during
director of editorial services, has a theory
imaging procedures—was carefully planned.
about why Children’s Hospital Boston
is so unique. It’s the staff, she says:
“Kudos to the hospital,” said Keith Strauss, director of radiology physics and engineering.
“You’ve got to like kids. If you like kids,
“They wanted to create an outpatient environment where patients would not feel they
you’re patient, kind, generous of spirit.”
were walking into a hospital. And they succeeded.”
Nancy’s not talking about just the doctors,
continued inside
continued inside
www.c hildrenshospital.org
From the Chief, continued from p. 1
Nemo, continued from p. 1
nurses and technologists. Here, everyone
Longwood Avenue department can now be
Strauss and the Radiology Department’s technical directors, Linda Poznauskis and Royal Davis, were part of
a multidisciplinary team that brainstormed and planned for more than a
year in an effort to get the new facility
just right. The result is a pleasing blend
of form and function that lowers the
anxiety level of young patients while
meeting the technical requirements of
the staff and equipment.
found in the radiology suite of the hospital’s
An environment for children
satellite clinic in Waltham. Our cover story
“Psychologically, it’s important that the patients feel like they are the focus,”
said Poznauskis, who oversees a staff of more than 100 technologists in Boston,
Waltham and Lexington. One way to ensure this, she realized, was to shield
patients and their families from as much of the medical hustle-and-bustle as
possible. So, a circular waiting room, adorned with woodsy touches appropriate
to its forest theme, occupies the place of honor in the first-floor space. Procedure
rooms open off it and connect to a back hallway where staff can move around
without disturbing patients and their families in the waiting room.
contributes to our mission. She does, every day,
as she helps our faculty prepare their research
for publication and edits grant proposals for
funding that will enhance our ability to diagnose
and treat sick children. See the back cover for
more about Nancy.
The same positive energy that infuses our busy
introduces our new facilities and the dedicated
professionals who work there. I’d like to give
special kudos to the team that made it happen:
Keith Strauss, Linda Poznauskis, Royal Davis
and John Speziale. They spent months planning
and working with architects and facilities planners so that the children who come to Waltham
for a CT scan or an MRI receive the same
excellent care we provide at Longwood.
I’d like to single out one more individual for
recognition, even though he’s not on my payroll.
Bob Widdop is a retired telephone company
lineman and cancer survivor who founded the
Big Apple Circus’s Clown Care Unit here in
1996. Dressed as Nurse B.B., Bob makes “clown
rounds” to cheer patients large and small. He’ll
never make a best-dressed list in those size 49
shoes and that red nose, but who cares? He
recently received a bigger honor—his portrait
Imaging from A to Z
The radiology suite offers magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography
(CT) scans, ultrasound, diagnostic X-rays, fluoroscopy and nuclear medicine procedures, plus a 3-tesla MRI magnet that will be used primarily for research. Two
radiologists from the main hospital work at Waltham every day under the leadership
of Rick Fair, MD. Operations Manager Patricia Devine manages the staff, and the
facility offers flexible hours to accommodate patients.
Pediatric radiologist Rick Fair, MD, is in
charge of the radiology service at Waltham.
Fair and the other radiologists work in a reading room at Waltham, interpreting
images and dictating reports into the hospital’s PACS (picture archive and communication system), while nuclear medicine doctors in Boston use a seamless technology
link to review bone scans and other images generated by the single photon emission
computed tomography/SPECT-capable gamma camera at Waltham.
The radiology suite supports the work both of the Children’s Hospital Boston specialists—
particularly the orthopedists—who practice at the Waltham clinic and of pediatricians and other doctors in the area. The Radiology Department estimated that about
10,000 imaging studies would be performed during the year after the suite opened,
but the volume of studies is already higher than expected.
Excellent facilities;
fast results
Another way to ensure child-centered care was to incorporate distractions into
the environment of each procedure room. Some rooms feature hidden light
banks that morph into a rainbow of hues; others have restful backlit mosaics in
the ceilings that kids can watch while undergoing CT scans or nuclear medicine
procedures. “We wanted to use distraction techniques rather than to sedate
patients,” said Davis, the technical director for nuclear medicine/PET.
Families are responding positively to the new suite. “Parents are always complimenting the facility,” said Keshaunda Chinn, a tech aide. “We always get
comments on how beautiful it is.” In addition to two fish tanks, the waiting room
features giant etched-glass “leaves” hanging from the ceiling, pint-sized play
tables, two plasma TVs and original artwork.
“Patients and families say it’s much less stressful not having to commute into
Boston and find parking,” said Cheryl Iuliano, assistant chief technologist at
Waltham. “People are loving this. The majority of patients and families we see
here are just thrilled.”
“Grease” comes to the radiology suite at Waltham for Halloween.
Back, left to right: Shaunda Chinn, Donna Duncan, Stephanie
Bodgan, Cheryl Iuliano, Patty Devine, Arnie Cyr, Monique
Thibodeau, Rich Farago, Christopher Lowe, Jeanne Chow,
Kevin Studley. Front: Sara Fuller, Angela Younger, Diona Roby,
Victoria Dune, and Jamie McCarey.
“Patients are being treated well,”
said S. Ted Treves, chief of the
Division of Nuclear Medicine/PET.
“They let us know that their procedures were done well and with a
lot of care, and they appreciate the
speed with which we can report
back to their doctors. I don’t think
there’s another satellite pediatric
imaging facility in the Boston
suburbs that’s as well equipped.” 䡲
Children’s Hospital Boston at Waltham
is located at 9 Hope Ave., Waltham,
Mass. 02453. To make an appointment, please call 781-216-1100.
now hangs with oil paintings of the hospital’s
notables on the “wall of fame” in the Hunnewell
building. Take a look. Meanwhile, enjoy this
issue of Reading Room.
For directions to the Waltham suite, please see
www.childrenshospital.org/locations.
“People are loving this. The majority
of patients and families we see here are
just thrilled.”
–Cheryl Iuliano, assistant chief technologist at Waltham
Hospital Acquires
MicroPET Scanner
Children’s Hospital Boston has acquired
the Longwood Medical Area’s first stateof-the-art microPET research facility for
noninvasive small-animal imaging. The
microPET scanner allows real-time, in
vivo evaluation of many physiologic
processes, such as blood flow, glucose
metabolism and protein synthesis. It
also promises to accelerate the speed of
many basic and preclinical investigations. S. Ted Treves, MD, the hospital’s
chief of Nuclear Medicine/PET, is the
director of the new facility and chair
of the MicroPET Research Committee.
Please contact him at 617-355-7935 or
[email protected] for more
information. The facility is open to all
qualified users.
Wordsmith Finds a Niche in Radiology
Nancy Drinan, the Radiology Department’s first
director of editorial services, is busy. She’s in the
midst of drafting a patient consent form that will
be comprehensible to someone with a sixthgrade education, helping several faculty members
write textbook chapters and editing proposals for
research funding. And she’s assisting with the
organization of a conference for brain tumor
researchers.
“When George Taylor and I first
talked about hiring her, we worried that there wouldn’t be
enough work,” said S. Ted
Treves, MD, chief of the Division
of Nuclear Medicine/PET and
professor of radiology at Harvard
Medical School (HMS). “Now
she is booked two
months in advance.”
That’s just fine with
Drinan, a former English teacher who came
to Children’s last July
Nancy Drinan, director of
after six years as
editorial services.
manager of editorial
services and special projects in the radiology
department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
There, under the direction of Ferenc Jolesz, MD,
she drafted—and redrafted—a 2,000-page grant
application that won the hospital $17 million in
support of an image-guided therapy center.
The move from the Brigham, where she worked
in a research laboratory, involved more than just
changing offices. “Here, one of the exciting
things for me is being closer to patient care, and
particularly to small children,” she said. “I see on
a daily basis what our faculty do to save lives.”
Drinan’s work involves everything from correcting
punctuation to completely rewriting documents
as diverse as letters of recommendation, journal
articles and grant applications. “Whatever I need
to do to get the job done, I do it,” she said.
The radiologists, busy with clinical duties and
research, are very appreciative.
That may be due partly to Drinan’s approach to
the job. She regularly attends faculty meetings
so that she can understand their needs and concerns; that presence also makes her more accessible. “If they see me at the meeting, they may
say, ‘Nancy, by the way, I have a paper to get out
the door in three weeks,’” she said.
Drinan also attends monthly research meetings
in the Division of Nuclear Medicine/PET. “I benefit from hearing what’s in the pipeline, what’s
going to turn into a grant and what’s going to
turn into a paper,” she said. “I also like to generate ideas and serve as a sounding board. I think
of myself as a creative person—a nonscientist
who can offer an outside perspective or come up
with ideas and questions that wouldn’t necessarily
occur to the researchers.”
Edward Lee, MD, MPH, a pediatric radiologist
and HMS instructor, has been working closely
with Drinan on a number of projects. As a junior
faculty member, he appreciates the expertise she
provides. “Dr. Taylor wants to create an environment that is full of support systems that enable
junior faculty to come in and succeed,” said Lee.
“I’m very grateful because I feel sure there aren’t
many places that offer such help.”
Drinan says she enjoys being a “behind-thescenes” person and gets enormous satisfaction
from guiding a project to fruition. “My greatest
feeling of gratification comes when the ‘job’ is
successful: the manuscript gets published; the
investigator is awarded a grant; someone receives
a promotion.”
“Even though I’m sitting at the screen, fixing
words, I’m never very far removed from the mission of this hospital,” she said. “Opportunities
to do something good present themselves
every day.” 䡲
Hospital Honors Clown-in-Chief
The official portrait of Bob “Nurse B.B.” Widdop.
Photograph by George A. Taylor, MD.
Visitors who find themselves in the stairwell of the hospital’s
Hunnewell building can be forgiven for doing a double take
as they gaze upon the luminaries commemorated in oil and
canvas on its elegant walls. There, nestled among the solemn
portraits of the chiefs of service, is another chief—Bob Widdop,
who founded the hospital’s Big Apple Circus Clown Care
Unit in 1996. But he’s wearing a garish plaid suit, a nurse’s
cap and, in place of a pocket watch, a rubber chicken!
Widdop, who makes clown rounds as “Nurse B.B.,” was
immortalized by Radiologist-in-Chief George A. Taylor, MD,
who photographed him in the hospital library’s Gamble
Reading Room and had the image printed on canvas.
“That hall is full of pioneers in medicine, and, in his own
way, Bob is a pioneer in the healing arts as well,” said Taylor,
an amateur photographer who has photographed Widdop
and his clown colleagues during the past few years. “Bob is
an intuitive healer; he understands what it’s like to be sick
and realizes the strong power of humor and humanity in
healing. He’s an amazing guy.” 䡲
Reading Room
© 2007 Children’s Hospital Boston
Department of Radiology
300 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
617-355-7828
[email protected]
The late Dr. Edward B. D. Neuhauser, chair of
the Radiology Department from 1941 to 1974.
This painting, made by Frank E. Bensing in
1959, hangs in the hospital’s Neuhauser
Reading Room.
Department Launches
Web Site for Fellows
Visit www.bostonpedrad.org for information
about the pediatric radiology, neuroradiology, and
nuclear medicine fellowships offered at Children’s
Hospital Boston.
Radiologist-in-Chief
John A. Kirkpatrick Professor
of Radiology
George A. Taylor, MD
Writing & Editing
Kathleen Clute
[email protected]
Copyediting
Joy Sobeck
Design
Sharon Elwell, Elwell Design
[email protected]
Photography & Digital Imaging
George A. Taylor, MD
Kathleen Clute
Administration
Jane Choura