Dr Philip W Chao has worked in Delaware since 1990 producing the highest quality 1.5T images on several GE Signa and Philips Intera magnets.   He has 27 years experience doing both body and brain MRI.  He is the only physician in Delaware with a double fellowship in body MRI and neuroradiology.   We are the only office with two 3T magnets for super high quality imaging.  These scanners cost up to 3 million dollars installed.  We made this investment to HELP THE PEOPLE OF DELAWARE have something no other state has.  Full state coverage with 3T advanced MRI imaging.  This can pick up so many small findings that other scanners might miss.  He also has experience with the upright FONAR 0.6T magnet.  However we feel that 3T offers the best MRI on the planet.   We can do thin sections (less than 1mm thick) which can find more lesions easier at 3T.  We can also scan in smaller areas (with fields of view as small as 8 cm) which gives us higher resolution.  Dr Chao graduated from Yale University in 1979.  He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.  He attended the University of Rochester School of Medicine and graduated in 1983.  He did a transitional internship at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital.  He has been interested in MRI technology since it became available during his medical school training.  He did a radiology residency at State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center where he had experience with the Johnson and Johnson 0.6T Teslacon.  This was the first general MRI unit for clinical scanning which was considered high quality and high-field at that time).   He graduated Alpha Omega Alpha from SUNY with a 1 year fellowship in Neuroradiology.   He then completed a combined Body and Neuroradiology fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania from 1988-1990.   He chose this fellowship to work with some of the finests MRI radiologists in the world who developed many of the techniques we use everyday today.  It was a very exciting time in MRI development and Dr. Chao was right in the middle of it.  He is a senior member of the American Society of Neuroradiology.   In 1990 he moved to Delaware and has produced the highest quality MRI studies he could at several MRI units in Delaware.  At his prior office he grew the practice from one MRI unit to 4 units.  He has interpreted in his life about 300000 MRI studies.  He has the greatest experience in MRI in Delaware.  He has working on GE Signa 1.5T scanners which were the highest clinical field strength from 1986-2000.  He passed the Certificate of Added Qualifications in 1995.  He passed the Maintenance of Certification in Neuroradiology in 2006.  He has been working on bringing 3T to Delaware since 2004.    And he is the first 3T MRI in Delaware.   And now the 1st 32 channel 3T scanner.  Our 3T scanner is now even better than twice as good as other scanners!

Having used the 3T scanner for two and half years now, not only do we have the most experience at 3T in the state of Delaware, we have made diagnoses that simply are impossible using older inferior MRI units.  Our newest unit is the WIDE OPEN 1.5T Siemens Espree.  It is similar to the Siemens Aera.  Both are the widest and shortest MRI scanners in the world.  Even though we feel that 1.5T MRI is inferior, we believe that patient comfort is important.  The 1.5T WIDE OPEN MRI is the widest MRI on the inside.  It is the most spacious MRI system in the world.  And... it is the least claustrophobic MRI system.  94% of patients when they have had an MRI on the Siemens Espree and any OTHER scanner, prefer the Espree.   Any patient who has a scan on the Espree will insist that they ONLY be scanned on the Espree.  It is so much more comfortable than any other scanner.  It has the latest pulse sequences and 18 channel total imaging matric surface coils.  it is the most advanced and widest MRI system in Delaware.  That says that patient comfort is truly the best on the 1.5T Espree.  Sometimes to get a good study you need the patient to be comfortable.  The new advanced software of the 1.5T wide open Espree will also help us to get better studies than the average 1.5T MRI unit.  It has sequences such as BLADE to freeze patient motion and REVEAL to show early cancers in the breast, prostate, lung and abdomen.  We also have special cardiac MRA seqences which will allow us to generate a view of your coronary arteries without injection of dye in 80% of patients.  Not everyone who has the coronary MRA study will get a readable study but when I spoke to Dr. Andrew Arai of the National Institutes of Health - he thought that we could get a good study in 80% of the patients.  That is also an advance.  WE are so fast we can get good scans on a patient with an arrythmia.