Thursday, September 24, 2009

2nd clinical blog



There was a 19 year old male who presented to the ED. He had been having a sore throat for several days. He also had difficulty swallowing. The ER physician ordered a CT soft tissue neck with IV contrast. I questioned him to clear him for the dye. I injected 60 cc of Omnipaque 350 at 2.0 cc per second. After a 50 second delay, I scanned him. I then reformatted the images into sagittal and coronal view for the radiologist. The radiologist read the images off PACS as a 3.5 cm diameter right tonsillar abscess with right reactive jugular adenopathy.







Friday, September 11, 2009

1st few weeks clinical

It has been a little hectic at clinicals. I have been very busy at my clinical site, Deaconess Gateway Hospital in Evansville, IN. I had a couple of interesting cases.

First interesting case I had was an 86 year old white male from ED complaining of right lower quadrant and groin pain. Patient had an inguinal hernia repair approximately 2 weeks prior. Patient stated the pain medications made him constipated and was straining to have a bowel movement, when a large knot appeared in his right groin area. I scanned patient axially using the standard abdomen and pelvis protocol from just above the top of the diaphragm to the bottom the pelvis, administering 85cc of Omnipaque 350. I then reformatted the images into coronals and sagittals. The radiologist read the report as 5 x 11 cm fluid collection in right inguinal canal. It may represent simple fluid or seroma although difficult to exclude abscess. No bowel herniation seen.





Then I had a 56 year old white female who came in through the ED with shortness of breath and chest pain. She has a family history of pulmonary emboli, her mother and brother have both had them. I scanned the patient axially through her entire lung field, administering 100 cc of Omnipaque 350. I also reformatted them in sagittal and coronal MIPs. The radiologist read the exam as acute bilateral PE, right greater than left.








Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Let me Introduce Myself

Hello! My name is Joanna Howard. I am a 34 year old mother of two wonderful little girls; 8 and 2. I have want to go back to school and get my Bachelors degree for almost 1o years. This has not really been possible to now. I have been a CT Tech for 12 years. I recently became registered in CT. It has been a long time coming, but now I think I'm ready to prove I can to it for myself and to my girls. Anything is possible when you set your mind to it!!