Alright, I don’t love the fact of being wrong, but my mission is to motivate improvements in MRI safety for patients, staff, and providers. I’m not the least bit interested in having the longest list of ‘I told you so’ moments, and I’m uncomfortable when someone applies the term ‘guru’ to me. I am openly, vocally, critical of organizations when I feel that they haven’t lived up to their obligation to reinforce MRI safety standards, so when one of them does well, I can’t tell you how happy I am to eat my prior words, and today is an example of that…
Posts Tagged ‘resonance’
I Love Being Wrong…
Sunday, March 7th, 2010MRI Projectile Accidents – One Exemplar
Friday, February 19th, 2010How to pick just one when there are a number of alarming, tragic, and needless MRI accidents to choose from? Let’s look at one that we can help the reader better imagine, the case of a pair of flying scissors that had to be surgically removed from a technologist’s forehead…
Gurney Crashes MRI, Patient Injured, Hospital Fined $50K
Sunday, January 24th, 2010It is the stuff of fabled oral-histories, often dismissed as MRI urban-legend. The patient is wheeled into the MRI room on a gurney that goes flying toward the scanner. “How on Earth could these accidents happen when we know about these risks,” the skeptics question? Almost never does more than a single fragment of information surface about these sorts of accidents and, without verification, nearly all accounts can be erroneously written-off as fiction. Or, that was until enough pieces fell into place to conclusively document a recent episode… Click Here To Read More About MRI Gurney Accidents…
ThermaCare HeatWrap Dangerous In MRI?
Friday, January 8th, 2010Yesterday I was provided a copy of an anonymized MRI accident / incident report which described how an MRI patient wearing a ThermaCare HeatWrap (something of a self-warming patch for muscle aches) had the wrap pulled off of them by the magnetic attraction of the MRI.
ThermaCare HeatWrap Products Contain Iron And May Be Drawn Into MRI Scanners
Click To Read More About This Incident And How To Prevent Similar Accidents From Occurring…
Can We Still Call Them ‘Never Events’ When Accidents Happen So Frequently In MRI?
Monday, December 7th, 2009This post attempts to draw-together two recent threads from here on the MRI Metal Detector blog. First, there was a long-running question about the FDA and their online-accessible database of medical device accidents which, for months, appeared to be malfunctioning, and recently was repaired. Second, there was my post in which I identified 5 MRI ‘Never Events’ which, if industry standard procedures are followed, should never occur.
MRI ‘Never Event’ In Athens, Alabama
Sunday, December 6th, 2009The Athens, Alabama, News Courier ran a story December 4th on their website about a 21-month boy who received a 3rd degree burn from an MRI. This hits square in the middle of the 5 MRI ‘never events’ that were enumerated a few months ago here on this blog.
RSNA / AAPM Identify Halo Ferromagnetic Risks
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009In the Tuesday, December 1st, issue of the RSNA Daily Bulletin, the ‘Tip of the Day’ was provided by the American Association of Physics in Medicine. The tip identifies specific risks of ferromagnetic tools and hardware associated with orthopedic devices, such as ‘halo’ vests…
ECRI Top 10 Medical Technology Hazards Includes MRI Projectiles
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009Every year the ECRI Institute publishes their Top 10 health technology hazards, identifying the 10 most serious (and unintended) risks posed by our ever-increasing use of sophisticated medical devices to diagnose and treat patients. In November, the Institute released their 2010 watch list, which dedicated a Top 10 slot, and an entire page, to ferromagnetic projectiles in MRI.
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do…
Saturday, November 28th, 2009I’m not prepared to break out into song with ‘Hakuna Matata’ (at least, not yet), but the circular nature of things in life is unmistakable: ironically, the path that my commitment to MRI safety has taken has also produced the unintended consequence of getting me ‘uninvited’ from the ACR’s MR Safety committee.
Let’s look at the circular path it took to arrive here… Click Here For The Rest Of The Story…