Apple gets ads from radiologists

It was a kind of coincidence that lead Li Jun Qian, researcher at the Renji Hospital and Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine in Shanghai, China to a quite unusual use of iTunes, the well known music-management software of Apple. “One day I just happened to drag and drop a PDF into iTunes and was surprised to find that it was supported by iTunes” Qian said.

 

Spurred by this very simple investigation the radiologist went further. “This means that you can search, describe, and rate PDFs just like you do the music files," Li Jun Qian added and decided to check the abilities of the program in a study, which appears in American Journal of Roentgenology.

"Most published medical papers are available on the internet in a PDF format now," said Qian, MD, lead author of the study. "For radiologists, these electronic papers provide richer information (e.g. various cases, reviews and abundant, valuable images) than conventional textbooks and can be easily found and downloaded for further reading via online databases. However, managing PDF files is troublesome and it is difficult to find software designed for organizing them," said Qian.

 

 Generally speaking, most people sort PDF files in folders on their PC by topic. However, using this approach does not solve the issue of how to file multi-subject articles, said Dr. Qian The study authors found that iTunes can address this issue due to its powerful search and sort functions, its ability to remember a user's favorite articles and its capability to support customized shortcuts for different topics and/or categories. "We no longer need to keep PDF files in redundant folders," Quian said.