teaching cardiologists how to best use this new diagnostic technique. They then made me a job offer and I commenced work immediately after receiving my diploma in diagnostic ultrasonography.
Duet, Amsterdam, Netherlands Photo by Barry Epstein
Old and New Building Reflection, Paris, France Photo by Barry Epstein
Bank, Munich, Germany Photo by Barry Epstein
The day I started work, they sent me up to Boston to meet some cardiologists that had received the equipment a few days earlier. Without any job training, I was now instructing three Harvard professors of cardiology at Brigham and Women’ s Hospital, a Harvard affiliated facility. Yes, I was a bit nervous, particularly when they brought me some tough pathology to diagnose over several hours, but I was able to go through the technology and its applications systematically. The next day was at Duke University, then Northwestern followed by just about every major tertiary hospital and Ivy League university in the USA. I also traveled extensively throughout Europe and many times I was able to take my camera to capture some of the beauty of Europe. I was the leading world expert and I was openly sharing the knowledge. Interestingly, many cardiologists refused to accept the technique initially as they thought that it would take away their earning capacity from their invasive techniques such as cardiac catheterization where they inserted catheters and used dyes and X-rays to look at the heart. Once they realized that Doppler Echo was a screening tool that would generate more catheter work, they accepted the new technology. I worked with many world leading cardiologists who used our equipment to do research and publish their results. Our company sold machine after machine and we became number 1 worldwide as I hired and trained more educational specialists to support customers and the sales force.
It was time consuming and difficult to teach cardiologists and technologists about the diagnostic technique. The heart on the system screen was displayed in real time and was rotated from its normal appearance in the chest. I decided a visual aid was needed. I wrote, directed and produced a twelve minute 35 mm film and computer animated educational video for this purpose. The making of the video was quite difficult and exciting. I managed to get hold of an excised heart, one that was taken out of the body. I had that shipped to Duke University that had the best computer axial tomography( CAT) technology. The heart was scanned in small digital slices and I took these scans to an animation facility in New York City
BARRY STEVEN EPSTEIN- PhotoAutobiography DRAFT
49 of 156