Dr. David A. Siker
AS COMPETITION AMONG IMAGING CENTERS INTENSIFIES, providers seek technology that gives them an edge. David A. Siker, MD, managing partner of Siker Medical Imaging and Intervention, Portland, Ore, found just such an advantage in the form of 3T. “The best way to compete is to offer the best imaging studies possible, and that’s precisely what a 3T magnet delivers,” Siker says.
It was the desire to produce studies of the highest quality that led Siker to acquire a Siemens Trio with Total imaging matrix (Tim), making Siker Medical Imaging and Intervention first in the United States among freestanding centers to install the 3T system for clinical (as opposed to research) applications.
RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
The center, set near Portland’s historic Pearl district, occupies a century-old, 372-m2, factory-style building that once housed a production bakery. “I did not like any of the conventional medical office spaces that the real estate agents kept showing me,” Siker explains, noting that those offerings lacked authenticity, a characteristic that many Portlanders cherish.
Siker renovated the former bakery (with its rectangular concrete slab foundation that proved ideal to support an MRI unit), but left intact many of the cavernous building’s endearing features (such as the overhead exposed ductwork and long rows of windows) while adding some stylish touches of his own (such as aged pine flooring).
“It has a different ambiance. Patients think that it is really cool, and that contributes to putting them at ease when they come in, so they feel more comfortable during imaging studies and procedures,” Siker says. “The MRI room itself was especially built with the claustrophobic patient in mind. It is unusually large; it has windows, wooden floors, and potted plants. It is a very nonthreatening space.”
Siker settled on the Siemens Trio after a careful evaluation of available technology.
“It was clearly a genuine workhorse of a system, the best of any that I had seen,” he says. “As a neurointerventional radiologist who performs high-end specialized procedures of the neck and head, I have always been one to push the technology envelope in the clinical setting. This venture is no different. The business plan that I developed spelled out that we would be equipped with state-of-the-art MRI because I wanted the absolute best imaging possible. That made Siemens’ new 3T magnet the obvious—and easy—choice for me.”
