The teaching of computer programming and digital image processing in radiography

The increased use of digital processing techniques in Medical Radiations imaging modalities, along with the rapid advance in information technology has resulted in a significant change in the delivery of radiographic teaching programs. This paper details a methodology used to concurrently educate radiographers in both computer programming and image processing. The students learn to program in visual basic applications (VBA), and the programming skills are contextualised by requiring the students to write a digital subtraction angiography (DSA) package. Program code generation and image presentation interface is undertaken by the spreadsheet Microsoft Excel. The user-friendly nature of this common interface enables all students to readily begin program creation. The teaching of programming and image processing skills by this method may be readily generalised to other vocational fields where digital image manipulation is a professional requirement.