Who cares? Abdominal plain films. Do we need them anymore?Yes, but a whole art is about to go the way of the dinosaur. I attended med school when we didn't scan everybody for anything so we did spend some time looking at plain abdominal Xrays and I know a bit more than the youngsters about how to read them, but they rarely help. Oh, there's the time I saw a fecalith and diagnosed appendicitis on a kid, and the time I saw an AAA which turned out to be 'fixin to rupture', and then there's the one really helpful thing about abdominal films... finding air fluid levels and bowel dilatation.
Even then though, the medicine docs and surgeons usually order a CT Scan. So I'm sorry abdominal plain film, my feelings for you are, well, very platonic. Please don't cry.
With this in mind I have posted an abdominal plain film which is notable for two findings (and probably a lot more but, again, I don't care anymore). One, it is that it show's a pretty good likeness of a prenatal "Mr. Hanky", and it also shows a rather large unborn fart. Oh, how far you have fallen, abdominal plain film.
It really helps when you go all technical on us.
ReplyDeletewell then john, probably some osteoarthritic changes in both hips, non-specific bolwel gas pattern, bladder full.
ReplyDeleteRemember back in the 80's when someone would get a little sloppy every once in awhile and get a KUB back with a little skeleton right in the middle??? They used to hang em up in a corner of the ER until the next one came back...
ReplyDeleteFrank
911, I meant your comment and it also shows a rather large unborn fart.
ReplyDeleteI'm an xray tech/ CT tech, and I miss the KUB of yesteryear. Now I routinely do CT scans for kidney stones. And when you come back to the ER three days later about the kidney stone you still haven't seen a urologist for, I do another CT scan. Two days later when you return to the ER, still perplexed about that kidney stone, I do another CT. I once CT'd the same kidney stone through the ER 7 times.
ReplyDeleteI challenge any new xray graduate to a mastoid duel. They will not know how to xray them, sinuses are all CT.
Looks like you got a little spam problem, 911, you should handle that.
ReplyDeleteno spam here!
ReplyDeleteWe have an ER doc who's absolute favorite unofficial diagnosis is FOS (full of sh**). I swear he xrays everyone's abdomen just so he can go in there and tell them they're full of poop.
ReplyDelete"a rather large unborn fart".
ReplyDeleteVery funny writing! Yet painful to the patient.
fecalith...monolith of feces? as you can guess, I'm no doctor, but I do like the sound of that word, fecalith.
ReplyDeletefecal=poo
ReplyDeletelith=stone
drop one "l" and in modern english i believe that's a compound word!