Posts Tagged ‘injury’
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
Those who know me know that I’m an upbeat person. Not the spring-out-of-be-fifteen-minutes-before-the-alarm-”so-happy-to-greet-the-morning” type of upbeat, but more of an indefatigable cautious-optimism. Yes, there are bad days… days when I’d just prefer to pull the covers over my head to wait to see if next week Thursday offers enough to coax me out of bed. But I’m of the firm belief that – on those days – you have to drag your sorry butt out of bed and put one foot in front of the other, if for no other reason than you might forget how if you skip a day. Someday, no matter how distant or unlikely, you will meet your goal.
Guess what? Today is one of my somedays! (more…)
Tags: accident, accreditation, ACR, annual meeting, FDA, injury, Joint Commission, license, magnetic resonance, MRI, regulation, requirement, safety, standard, workshop
Posted in Other MRI Safety | No Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2011
I’m not big on New Years’ resolutions. In fact, I’ve previously resolved to not resolve… but today I’m breaking that vow (or would that be a ‘disavow’?). This year there are just too many things precariously poised — that could fall our way or not — that I can’t help but to resolve to rededicate myself to making substantive changes to industry standards and practices for MR safety, and here’s how I’m going to do it…
Click To Learn How…
Tags: 2011, accident, accreditation, ACR, American College of Radiology, care, Center for Medicare, CMS, death, fatality, FDA, Food and Drug Administration, injury, Joint Commission, magnetic resonance, MRI, New Year, practice, resolution, risk, safety, standard, TJC
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety, Other MRI Safety | No Comments »
Friday, December 31st, 2010
Make no mistake, Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis (NSF), a horrible (and thankfully very rare) disease which can afflict persons with significantly impaired kidney function who receive certain gadolinium based MRI contrast agents. Over the past few years, tremendous resources have been poured into the identification of patients, research on the specific mechanisms of disease, and effective means of prevention. NSF has run into a problem, however, which has dramatically curtailed further research… we’ve darn-near eliminated this disease!
(more…)
Tags: accident, burn, contrast, damage, death, dye, fatality, Gadolinium, hearing, injury, kidney, magnetic resonance, missile, MRI, nephrogenic fibrosing dermopathy, nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, NSF, projectile, radiologist, radiology, tinitus
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety, Other MRI Safety | 2 Comments »
Sunday, December 19th, 2010
First, let me say that this isn’t a ‘leak’ in the sense that none of the information I’m about to share is (any longer) confidential. This information is all public record as a result of court filings for the now-settled civil suit surrounding the 2001 MRI fatality of Michael Colombini. There are documents associated with that civil lawsuit which did not wind up as filings with the court and therefore are not a part of the public record. I have no difficulty not releasing those because (among other reasons) I don’t have any of them.
“Why — now — ten years later would you post these documents?”
Excellent question! Here’s why I didn’t publish these long ago…
Click To Learn Why These Weren’t Published, And What They Say…
Tags: civil, colombini, cylinder, death, department of health, deposition, fatality, imaging, incident, injury, investigation, lawsuit, layer, legal, magnetic resonance, MRI, New York, oxygen, projectile, radiology, report, safety, settlement, suit, tank, testimony, trial, Westchester Medical Center
Posted in Other MRI Safety | 2 Comments »
Thursday, December 16th, 2010
I stumbled across a paper abstract from the International Journal of Medical Physics Research and Practice. The abstract described a meeting on radiation oncology safety which, “attracted 400 attendees, including medical physicists, radiation oncologists, medical dosimetrists, radiation therapists, hospital administrators, regulators, and representatives of equipment manufacturers. The meeting was cohosted by 14 organizations in the United States and Canada.”
Damn! I’m impressed, particularly since the abstract also states that this meeting was hastily called in response to articles appearing, starting in January of this year, in the New York Times on radiology and radiation therapy accidents. Such a coordinated response by the professional societies. Such representation from the professional community at a time when conference and professional development budgets are being slashed. How does this compare with MRI?
Click To Read How The Two Compare…
Tags: accident, adverse event, death, fatality, FDA, imaging, injury, magnetic resonance, MAUDE, medicine, MRI, nuclear, oncology, radiation, radiology, safety, therapy
Posted in Other MRI Safety | No Comments »
Friday, September 24th, 2010
Make no mistake, I believe that healthcare has a special obligation to protect the well being of our patients, our beneficiaries, our charges. When it comes to radiology, nuclear medicine and radiation therapy (where treating the patient involves sticking them in an astoundingly complex machine and exercising advanced concepts in physics to have a computer reconstruct fragments of data into an intelligible picture)… well its just so damned complicated that we have to assume the full responsibility for patient safety because, under those circumstances, it is wholly unreasonable to expect the patient to be active participants in their own safety.
Click To Read More About Our Special Radiology Safety Duty…
Tags: accident, cancer, death, imaging, injury, lifetime, magnetic, medicine, MRI, nuclear, NY Times, patient, radiation, radiography, radiology, resonance, risk, safe, safety, therapy, Walt Bogdanich
Posted in Other MRI Safety | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010
This, in essence, is the entirety of point-of-care safety standards for MRI.
“Hey, you, MR technologist! Make sure you know what you’re supposed to know to keep people safe around MRI.“
Make no mistake, as someone who spent a decade in college (which included a Masters degree and about half of a 2nd Bachelors), I’m a huge fan of education. What I’m adamantly opposed to – when it comes to MRI safety – is education without any standards or benchmarks, which is precisely where we find ourselves today.
Click To Read What Tobias Thinks Is Wrong With MRI Safety Training…
Tags: accident, accreditation, ACR, American College of Radiology, best practice, CMS, education, FDA, IAC, ICAMRL, injury, JCAHO, license, magnetic, MAUDE, MRI, practice, radiology, resonance, safety, standard, Technologist, The Joint Commission, TJC, training
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety, Other MRI Safety | 1 Comment »
Monday, September 6th, 2010
Color me flattered! (which I think is the color of that shirt in the illustration)
Wired UK Illustration by Lee Hasler. Click for Wired UK source.
The UK edition of Wired magazine just ran one of their ‘featurettes’ on this blog and picked their favorite (though, that’s a slightly squint word-choice for potentially deadly accidents) types of projectile accidents. Quote’s from — and a direct link to — the article follow.
Click To Continue And Get The Link To The Wired UK Article…
Tags: accident, death, ferromagnetic, flat screen, floor, gun, gurney, handgun, image, imaging, injury, link, magnetic, missile, monitor, MRI, picture, pistol, polisher, projectile, resonance, safety, scissors, Vaughan Bell, wheelchair, Wired
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
Last year I highlighted an FDA MRI accident report in which a technologist had to have a pair of scissors surgically removed from his forehead after they’d caught him between the magnet-homing missile that they became, and the isocenter of the MRI. You may remember that I fauxtoshopped a hypothesis as to what that accident would have looked like on plain film: perhaps something like this… Click For More On What This Accident Was Like…
Tags: accident, death, fatality, FDA, force, imaging, injury, magnetic, MAUDE, missile, MRI, patient, projectile, radiographer, resonance, safety, scissors, Technologist, translational
Posted in Ferromagnetic Detection for MRI Safety | 2 Comments »
Friday, July 2nd, 2010
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has opened a brief public comment period on a request to lift reimbursement restrictions on imaging pacemaker patients with pacemakers.
Example of a Pacemaker Pulse-Generator Which Could Present Dangerous Contraindications For MRI Exams
Click To Read More And Link To The CMS Info…
Tags: cardiac, CMS, comment, death, defibrillator, device, FDA, hazard, ICD, imaging, implant, injury, magnetic, Medicaid, Medicare, MRI, National Coverage Determination, NCD, pacemaker, public, radiology, resonance, risk, Russo, safety, Scripps
Posted in Other MRI Safety | 2 Comments »
CMS Asked To Review MRI For Pacemaker Patient Exclusion
Friday, July 2nd, 2010The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has opened a brief public comment period on a request to lift reimbursement restrictions on imaging pacemaker patients with pacemakers.
Example of a Pacemaker Pulse-Generator Which Could Present Dangerous Contraindications For MRI Exams
Click To Read More And Link To The CMS Info…
Tags: cardiac, CMS, comment, death, defibrillator, device, FDA, hazard, ICD, imaging, implant, injury, magnetic, Medicaid, Medicare, MRI, National Coverage Determination, NCD, pacemaker, public, radiology, resonance, risk, Russo, safety, Scripps
Posted in Other MRI Safety | 2 Comments »