Whole-body MRI, designed for women | Rebecca Rakow-Penner, MD, PhD | TEDxSanDiegoSalon

Whole-body MRI is growing in popularity, but according to this talk, the scans were designed around men's bodies and do not target the diseases that matter most to women. Radiologist and MRI physicist Dr. Rebecca Rakow-Penner describes the gap in current scans for women. She argues for building whole-body MRI from head to toe specifically for the female patient. The talk was given at TEDxSanDiegoSalon and is published by TEDx Talks. Dr. Rakow-Penner is an Associate Professor of Radiology and Bioengineering at UC San Diego and directs the Women's Imaging Lab.

• Whole-body MRI is gaining popularity but was designed based on men's bodies
• The speaker identifies gaps in current scans for women's diseases
• Call to action: build whole-body MRI specifically for women
• Speaker: Rebecca Rakow-Penner, radiologist and MRI physicist

Whole body MRI is exploding in popularity—but it was designed based on men's bodies, and not built to catch the diseases that matter most to women. Dr. Rakow-Penner, a radiologist and MRI physicist reveals the gap in today's scans for women. Her call to action: stop retrofitting women into a man's blueprint, and build whole body MRI—head to toe—specifically for the patient actually on the table. @womensimager https://womensimaginglab.com #health #Women #MRI #disease #UCSD #TEDxSanDiego #TEDx #MooresCancerResearch #scientist #Cancer #research Rebecca Rakow-Penner MD, PhD is tenured Associate Professor of Radiology and Bioengineering at University of California San Diego and a thought leader in women’s health. She has an undergraduate Engineering Sciences degree from Harvard, and master’s degree in Bioengineering from Caltech. Her PhD is in Biophysics from Stanford University where her research focused on breast MRI. She also received her MD from Stanford and then completed her radiology residency and women’s imaging fellowship at UCSD. She is a translational scientist and practicing radiologist in the breast and body imaging sections at UCSD. She is the Director of the Women’s Imaging Lab and Co-Director of the Center for Translational Imaging. Dr. Rakow-Penner has grant funding from NIH, industry, and private foundations for her ground-breaking research in breast, ovarian, and cervical cancer as well as benign female pelvis disease. Her team is working on AI approaches for the detection of female specific diseases. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx