Rex, your story is too funny!

A friend of mine is a paramedic, and has told me some funny (and horrid!) stories. The one I found most amusing was the guy who stuck a safety pin in a small hole of HIS body (DEFINITELY did not belong there), and it opened up once manipulated. YIKES!!!

Cherie

What I don't understand is, how do things like office chairs and oxygen tanks get into the MRI room in the first place? Isn't there restricted access to the room, or a huge warning sign and/or procedures that all staff know about?

It seems like such a basic thing. I could understand someone forgetting they have a bobby pin in their hair, but how could a staff person or other authorized person forget to not bring an office chair or oxygen tank in??

I've never seen anyone bring an office chair into an MRI suite. As for oxygen - many inpatients are on O2 (oxygen), as you can imagine. The thing is, MRI rooms are actually steel and/or copper boxes, behind the attractively wall-papered drywall you see. Every entryway into the room, no matter how small, is a potential source of RF interference. Absolutely no RF energy must enter the magnet room during a scan. For this reason, running oxygen lines into the room is something that was rarely done during construction. So, when patients need O2, there are three choices; 1) use the conventional steel tank which is bolted to the stretcher, and leave the stretcher in the room during the scan; 2) purchase plastic, MR-compatible O2 tanks (the best choice); or 3) take the patient off O2 for the duration of the scan.

Leaving a steel O2 tank in the room isn't the safest thing to do, but if it's bolted into the stretcher it's not going anywhere. I certainly would never attempt to remove it from the stretcher, once in the room. :)

Patients and laypeople tend to think that everything can go according to the book if everyone is diligent. Unfortunately, medicine is a tough game because we're sometimes forced to do "now" - and in a less-safe manner - things which we could do in the best way "later". Sometimes we're not given the latitude to the best all-around job...this is a reality and not something to become inflexible over, if clinging to the book will delay important and necessary treatment. Sometimes we have to take measured risks.

Thanks, Rex... interesting stuff to know.

Real life in any area is always more complicated than other people's ideas about it.

I still can't get over those office chairs, though. :)

Nancy