Physical Trauma Case Study

As a freshman Radiology student, I expected to see a large amount of physical trauma once I started my clinical rotations. However, at Spohn South that is merely not the case, broken bones are actually quite rare. Merriam-Webster defines trauma as “a serious injury to a person 's body”, but to me trauma is physical damage to the body that happens unexpectedly and is rather instantaneous. Being able to perform radiographic examinations on patients that have experienced physical trauma is an important part of a student’s clinical experience. Nevertheless, knowing how to adapt to a patient’s specific needs and still obtain diagnostic images is not as easy as it may seem. Adaption and critical thinking skills are key requirements when handling …show more content…
This was certainly the case with this examination, although the examination request asked for three views only two were taken. In addition to the two initial views taken, a post reduction view was necessary to ensure the trochlea was properly seated in the trochlear notch of the ulna. Even though three views were originally requested, the technologist did not want to distress the patient any more than was necessary, so the two views taken were an anteroposterior view and a lateral view. Of course, due to the patient’s affliction these views were not taken in the standard manner. For instance, the first image taken was the lateral, which was taken with the patient seated in a wheelchair and the IR placed carefully under patient’s forearm and elbow. Also, because of the patient’s limited mobility of the extremity further accommodations needed to be made. Specifically, a slight angle was placed on the tube to ensure the proper anatomy was demonstrated and to reduce the amount of distortion. In contrast, for the anteroposterior view no tube angulation was needed, yet still the patient’s mobility of the extremity needed to be compensated for. With this in mind, the technologist asked the patient to extend her arm out horizontally as much as possible as the CR was centered to the mid-elbow joint. The IR was positioned behind the patient’s arm so that the horizontal beam and IR were positioned perpendicular to each other. Finally, the post reduction image was taken with a portable machine in the patient’s room. This image initially looked like it would be difficult to obtain as the patient was lain face down on the bed, the affected arm was hanging off the bed with the elbow of the arm at a 90-degree angle matching the natural curve of the bed. But the technologist simply