Many people just learning about MRI safety and hazards ask very similar questions. One of most frequent is, “why do I have to remove all metal before an MRI,” or it’s corollary, “can I get an MRI with some metal on (or in) me?” To answer these questions, let’s start at the very beginning…
Posts Tagged ‘projectile’
MRI Accidents, Hyperbola And Not Hyperbole
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009Def. Hyperbolic: Mathematical curve functions which have relations to the hyperbola.
Def. Hyperbolic: Rhetorical exaggeration or diminishing beyond the fact; exceeding the truth; as, an hyperbolical expression.
I have this sense that some feel that virtually all talk of MRI accidents is hyperbolic, or exaggeration. To those who believe this, I say there is a truth buried in this thought, but it’s not what they may think…
ECRI’s New Top-10 Health Technology Hazards
Thursday, December 18th, 2008The ECRI Institute has again published their annual Top-10 Health Technology Hazards document for 2008, which is available as a free download from their website. Number 9 on the ECRI list is one of the well known MRI hazards. But before I tell you which MRI hazard made their list, let me give you a little background on what the ECRI Institute is and what they do…
Click here to learn more about ECRI and their Top 10 MRI hazard…
Countdown To Colombini – Under 100 Days.
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008Indeed. Nearly 8 years later, the civil lawsuit trial surrounding the infamous death of a 6-year old boy is scheduled to begin in March of 2009.
The multi-million dollar lawsuit has been grinding through the legal system as a myriad of claims and counter-claims have been ricocheting around among the parties. Those who’ve been watching the pre-trial activities may attest to it sometimes resembling a soap-opera with shifting alliances, but it appears that the parties’ day in court will come in less than 100 days.
Click to read more about the fast-approaching MRI death civil trial…
MRI Truth Is Sometimes Stranger Than MRI Fiction
Friday, December 12th, 2008I have a serial weakness for medical dramas. I get sucked-in and watch for a couple of seasons before the absurdity catches up with me. With respect to MRI, it seems that 99% of the time the shows are so wildly off-base that it seems that each must outdo its own crazy scenarios (and those of the other medical dramas) to come up with a new MRI-related plot gimmick.
But then, typically after I’ve lost all hope of seeing anything that approaches reality, something plausible and even downright real is shown on one of these programs…
More Than Just A Pretty Face…
Thursday, November 13th, 2008How I long to be judged for my content… my substance… and not just how I look!
No, not me, the author, but the figurative ‘me‘, this blog…
I don’t know if you’ve ever used them, but all of the major internet search engines have tools that you can use to find images that match your search criteria. Every so often there’s a new paparazzi picture of some starlet in mid-wardrobe-malfunction or a politician with a facial expression that looks like they just smelled something awful that become the ‘it’ picture of the day.
Well, based on the number of hits our blog has been getting recently, and the image search tools that many of these hits are coming from, apparently we have a lesser ‘it’ picture, and it has nothing to do with politics or racy nudity…
It’s a picture of an ICU bed stuck to the face of an MRI.
Pictures of things stuck to magnets often generate wide-eyed looks, even laughter. After all, the juxtaposition can be pretty silly. But each of these pictures is only possible because of horrible mishaps that can each result in serious injury, or even fatality.
We encourage people to find and view these pictures, not to have a larger number of viewers snicker at them. We put them up to help deflate the ‘that could never happen here’ mythology that is dangerous. If you can see magnets, floor polishers, oxygen cylinders, wheelchairs or, as above, ICU beds that look like ones in use at the hospital or imaging center, then maybe the internal monologue becomes something more like, ‘what would have to happen here for us to have a similar accident?’
Most importantly, we hope that all of these efforts work to motivate Technologists, Radiographers, Imaging Managers, Radiologists, Risk-Managers and Compliance Officers to imagine which steps they could take at their locations to reduce the likelihood of these sorts of accidents.
There are many steps that can be taken to help improve the effectiveness of pre-screening for magnet hazards. One of the most obvious is also one of the easiest, the use of ferromagnetic detectors.
We encourage you to view and share the information contained on these pages and we hope that each of these resources, even the racy pictures of MRI missile accidents, help shape improvements to MRI safety at your facilities.
After all, I’m lot more than just a pretty face…
Tobias Gilk, President & MRI Safety Director Mednovus, Inc. Tobias.Gilk@Mednovus.com www.MEDNOVUS.comMRI Missile Effect Accident Pictures
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008You know, they’d be funny if they didn’t so often result in injuries to patients, Technologists, or housekeeping personnel. Yes, I’m talking about the plethora of MRI missile effect accident images that you can find scattered across the internet.
As everyone who’s spent more than an hour or two around an MRI knows, these super high-strength magnets have a reputation for ‘sucking-in’ ferromagnetic materials that are so prevalent in wheelchairs, gurneys, gas cylinders, fire extinguisher, and carts.
In the last few years, there’s been a spate of floor polishers that have found their way into MRI scanners across the country…
But while there’s a nearly universal urge to snicker at these images, it is important to realize two crucial things about each and every projectile accident.
First: Each and every MRI missile effect accident is theoretically 100% avoidable. By prospectively identifying the ferromagnetic nature of materials before they’re brought into the MRI suite, none of these need to happen. By following best practices including the ACR’s Guidance Document, or the Joint Commission Sentinel Event Alert, and deploying ferromagnetic detection screening of all people and materials approaching the MRI scanner, it is possible to prevent projectile accidents.
Second: Each and every ferromagnetic projectile incident has all the ingredients for injury. While there is only one official account of a projectile-related fatality, there are many, many reports of injury, a good number of which have been severe. And given the abysmal rates of MRI accident reporting, it’s entirely believable that other anecdotal accounts of MRI-projectile fatalities are more fact than fiction.
These projectile accidents are more commonplace, and more dangerous than many are aware. So what can you can do to avoid becoming a part of the MRI missile accident scrapbook? Start by reviewing all of your MRI safety protocols, and consider deploying ferromagnetic detection screening for each and every MRI.
Tobias Gilk, President & MRI Safety Director Mednovus, Inc. Tobias.Gilk@Mednovus.com www.MEDNOVUS.comPS: If you’d like to find more pictures, and even a video or two, on MRI accidents, I encourage you to check out www.SimplyPhysics.com/flying_objects.html