First X-ray
The first X-ray of a human body was that of Wilhelm Roentgen wife’s hand in 1895. He won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 for the discovery of the radiograph.
Today I learned
Things I learn during residency
Posts Tagged ‘ x-ray ’
Imaging consult
Some doctors think it is reasonable to call in a consult based on a radiologist’s read of an X-ray shot hours previously and having gone almost 10 hours without examining the patient themselves. Not so.
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Scope of practice
Try to stay within your scope of practice when performing procedures. For example, if you are an obstetric/gynecology attending, consider calling pulmonary or interventional radiology to do a thoracentesis for you rather than doing it yourself. It will save surgery a call the next day for a hemothorax. And when you do call surgery, make sure you know the difference between a pneumothorax and a pleural effusion: one is air (black), the other is fluid (white).
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The need for a new BMI category
When you weigh in excess of 250 kg (> 550 lb) and have a BMI of almost 85, there is no diagnostic modality that can adequately assess your injuries; no amount of x-rays will penetrate your soft tissue and the CT scan bed would collapse under your weight. Fortunately, it also means that if you were in a terrible motor vehicle collision, there’s a good chance that same soft tissue will protect your bones and insides from damage.
Calculate your BMI here. If it’s over 50, it deserves a new category: supra-obese. Greater than 75? Supra-obese, squared.
Nail to chest
When a nail fired from a nail-gun appears to be in the heart on AP and lateral x-ray views of the chest, that’s because it is. It did not merely skive the heart.
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Signs someone does not like you
Strategically placed knife into the back of a human neck. Yeah, that happened.
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Trying to sound intelligent
When a patient’s family member says they have experience in the medical field, but later asks whether we are ordering an X-ray to correct the patient’s blood pressure, that person has lost all credibility.
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Get a CXR
Always get a chest x-ray (CXR) after pulling a chest tube from a patient. Preferably immediately and not the next morning.
N.B. No patients were harmed during the production of this entry.
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Residency
A training program where the screaming never ends, the hours are gruesome, the pay is less than that of a slave, and mistakes are punishable by flogging.
Residency GraduationJune 30, 2017
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Today I learned 