Medical Articles

Published as a book in September 2009 by King MD and Stephenson BP, Mac Keith Press. In the book the authors discuss SimulConsult, beginning on page 1 with “With the explosion of electronic information such as found on PubMed and the availability of freely accessible diagnostic software such as SimulConsult one might ask what possible use is there for a handbook like this.

Published in Acta Pediatric in November 12, 2007 by Michael M Segal, MD PhD. Textbooks teach about diagnosis by describing diseases and the collection of findings in each disease. However, patients show up with findings, not diseases, and we must invert our knowledge to take the patient’s collection of findings and figure out the correct diagnosis. It is not so simple to do this, particularly in pediatrics.

MD NetGuide article “Top Ten Physician Inventors” (on page 7) cites as #2 Michael Segal MD PhD: “Was responsible for the development of SimulConsult, a decision-support software that combines clinical and laboratory findings to help physicians come to a simultaneous diagnosis on a disease.”

Published in Neurology Today on February 6, 2007 by Orly Avitzur MD. A sophisticated neurology wiki that helps doctors make clinical decisions is exactly what child neurologist Michael M. Segal, MD, PhD, had in mind when he created SimulConsult. SimulConsult users input data into software that helps them arrive at a differential diagnosis of neurological syndromes.

Published in Journal of Child Neurology in April 21, 2006 by Michael M Segal MD PhD. Medical practice will be improved by the use of software that not only assists with diagnosis but can do so at the bedside, where the doctor can act immediately upon suggestions such as useful findings to check. Medical education will shift away from a focus on details of unusual diseases and toward a focus on skills of physical examination and using compertized tools.

Neuronline review of SimulConsult by G. Fuller. Imagine the scene: you have just seen a patient with what seems likely to be an inherited or congenital syndrome who has a combination of symptoms and signs you do not recognise and in whom standard investigations have provided no clues. What do you do? Looking in the books is very time consuming and depends on how well the books are indexed; searching PubMed or online inheritance in man (OMIM) is often difficult using just symptoms and signs. Wouldn’t it be useful if you could put the clinical information into a database to narrow down the differential diagnosis?

Medical decision support software is the term used for computer programs and associated databases that help make diagnoses and advise on treatment. Because such software deals with skills that are central to the role of doctors, it tends to be the focus of hopes and fears about medical software.

by Orly Avitzur MD in the American Academy of Neurology’s publication “Neurology Today”: James D. Reggin, MD, the only child neurologist at MeritCare Health System in Fargo, ND, was called into consultation for an infant delivered 11 days earlier by C-section, now in respiratory distress and intubated, when pediatricians observed persistent hypotonia and a poor sucking reflex. Dr. Reggin noted that the infant displayed dysmorphic features as well as severe microcephaly, syndactyly, and multiple capillary hemangiomas. When he could not pinpoint a specific syndrome, he turned to SimulConsult, a computerized decision-support tool that helps neurologists arrive at difficult diagnoses by entering a list of findings.

American Academy of Neurology Neurology Today article “How Neurologists Use the Internet to Enhance Clinical Decision-Making” by Orly Avitzur MD. If C. J. Malanga, MD, PhD had his way, neurologists would be required to – not left with the option of – learning how to use the Internet… Dr. Malanga first discovered the benefits of the Internet as a child neurology fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), trying to determine a differential diagnosis for a case posted on the weekly neuropathology conference. The case involved a 15-year-old boy who was first seen at age 5 with slurred speech and gait instability and who continued to deteriorate over the next 10 years with emerging marked dystonia, dysphagia, tics and seizures.