Friday, July 27, 2012
The big dose.
Now, before I rant on this post, I just wanted to take a second to say I love my job, and I value it's importance in the process of diagnosing and treating disease. That being said, I produce IONIZING RADIATION. That means the xray photons knock electrons out of your atoms and produce Ions which are free radicals that damage your DNA, leading to cell death upon replication or worse, cancer. The highest dose you'll get from me? A CT scan. Yet for some reason some doctors order CT's like they're passing out candy at a parade. It concerns me that i'm frying brains and ovaries or whatever else when other imaging modalities are available, such as ultrasound. Granted, it is very important in the case of acute cerebral hemorrhage etc, but if you've had a headache for a couple hours, I don't really think I should be irradiating your brain. Just my opinion. What do you think?
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Working in two different urgent care centers, I have the same problem. People come in who have had pain for just a few hours to months with no injury and we do x-rays on everyone to cover the doctor's butt. Even someone who has had back pain but can walk totally normal and bend fine, gets an xray. Even someone who twisted their ankle...we do an x-ray. Shoulder pain...x-ray Growing up, I never went to the doctor when i hurt myself. It just seems like everyone nowadays has become weak and lazy. They don't want to try to make themselves better, they would rather have some medication do it for them.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Continuing my education I've learned that some fractures and conditions can be present without catastrophic symptoms, but they are the exception to the rule. I'm inclined to think that over scanning is along the same lines as over prescribing of antibiotics, its a cover your butt mentality, with real consequences.
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