I would suggest diplomatically telling your supervisor that you should choose your own research area and that foisting her personal requirements onto you is not (necessarily) in your best interest.
My thesis for my MSc was in an area that suited me (with the agreement of my tutor). While doing your research within the medical field may show that you can adapt I feel it is narrowing your options.
Be robust - its your future.
Hi subujoseph, another possibly more simple suggestion would be to analyse some kind of clinical system. For example dentists store all sorts of information about their patients etc. in their systems, including photographs and x-rays. There are various software packages used but the most common are 'Kodak's R4' and 'Software of Excellence's EXACT Dental'. I know that you can get a Demo version of EXACT (CAVEAT not sure if they give it to students) but it has demo data etc. in it so might be a good place to start.
I think a lot of the x-rays and stuff just run on Windows systems like anything else. That said I'm sure you could get some pretty interesting stuff if you were able to gain access to a machine such as an MRI.
I think you'll find that within the NHS there is no such thing as 'one system', each hospital, each clinic uses a different and often completely bespoke system to do the same things.
Of course Data Protection is a huge deal in the medical field so this may not be the easiest thing to research.
Good Luck )
Another area to look at (on the topic of medical devices) is some of the hand-held (usually wireless) devices in use by medical staff. As I understand it, some of them are used for tracking patient charts and tracking drug usage/prescriptions.
Take a look at http//
I was about to say something when I saw Paul's response. Agree whole heartedly.
It is not YOUR responsibility to work within the confines of HER chosen research field. You do your own work, propose your own project. If she opposes it, go over her head.
The only predicament that this causes is that she might mark you down. Don't worry about this, go over her head again. Keep doing it until she gets the message.
As you can tell from the responses digital forensics and the medical field do not cross paths very often so finding something in the middle of that specific Venn diagram is going to be a nightmare.
Another example of poor teaching from someone with no real-world experience.
I recently graduated with my bachelors in digital forensics and while going to school, I supported myself working as an anesthesia technician in the OR of a Level 1 trauma hospital. I'm actually still there because I am finding it difficult to secure my first position in the forensics field.
I just wanted to say that you will have a VERY difficult time obtaining the records, databases and use of any handheld devices or medical machines in any hospital. There are very strict rules even for employees. Most of the devices or machines I have access to requires me to use password, biometrics or a combination of both. For instance the Pixis machine is a machine that holds all the drugs…narcotics, non-narcotics,etc…employees have different levels of access to the different drugs. anesthesia gets access to narcotics and then there are different levels within anesthesia…..I do not have access to narcotics but do have access to other drugs. Regarding the machines and handheld devices, I must punch in SS numbers, employee IDs, biometrics such as fingerprints or a combination of all. Also, everything is tied into confidentiality whether it be patient or employee………it will be VERY hard to get the information you will need.
Thank you all guys for all your suggestions.
I could always do a Dissertation in the area of my chosen topic. But since I approached this supervisor (for some reason in my uni there is a shortage of supervisor maybe due to summer )) she suggested this idea. I agree with Paul and DFICSI that its not necessary but difficult as well. I thought I would take it as a challenge because it is something that no one (at least I hadn't thought of it earlier) would think of.
I just don't feel like quitting before giving it some serious thoughts.
I agree with tibbs66 and kiashi that getting data and access to systems might be a problem. I would also give some serious thoughts about your suggestions. If I could somehow get around it by creating some sample database or creating a made up scenario it might work.
I also came across this article http//
as suggested by piratefrog, analysing such device would be a good idea.
along those similar lines I came across a case where cyber terrorism was used for assassination (http//
I was wondering if this is possible or not? and if it is possible it might be something which we should be worried about and an interesting topic as well !!
I just wanted to say that you will have a VERY difficult time obtaining the records, databases and use of any handheld devices or medical machines in any hospital. There are very strict rules even for employees. Most of the devices or machines I have access to requires me to use password, biometrics or a combination of both. For instance the Pixis machine is a machine that holds all the drugs…narcotics, non-narcotics,etc…employees have different levels of access to the different drugs. anesthesia gets access to narcotics and then there are different levels within anesthesia…..I do not have access to narcotics but do have access to other drugs. Regarding the machines and handheld devices, I must punch in SS numbers, employee IDs, biometrics such as fingerprints or a combination of all. Also, everything is tied into confidentiality whether it be patient or employee………it will be VERY hard to get the information you will need.
That's in the extremely well-funded and notoriously litigious US healthcare system wink Despite the billions that the last UK government ploughed into NHS IT I suspect that technical security measures around data in UK hospitals are still generally less sophisticated. Data protection will definitely be an issue, though…
That's in the extremely well-funded and notoriously litigious US healthcare system wink Despite the billions that the last UK government ploughed into NHS IT I suspect that technical security measures around data in UK hospitals are still generally less sophisticated. Data protection will definitely be an issue, though…
I think you're overestimating the quality of medical records management in the US. Certainly based upon the limited amount of consulting I've done previously on the issue.
AFAIK there is NO actual analysis (or at least no-one that I could easily find) about the whole DICOM stuff
http//
http//dicom.nema.org/
Something in the line of
- possibility of altering JPEG images (for fun or profit wink )
- possibility of recovering damaged images 😯
- security of network standards ?
would probably do nicely, while still being "enough general" or "easily portable to more general standards" to be useful in your CV even if your career is aimed to non-medical digital forensics.
IMHO, exactly the fact that the Venn diagram has no "relevant" intersections may provide an original theme for a dissertation.
For no apparent reason 😉
http//
jaclaz