When Clinical Suspicion Trumps Radiology
A patient comes in with the entirely understandable complaint of “I have a fishbone lodged in my throat”. Came straight from dinner to the ED. When I ask a stupid question I’m given a stupid answer: “It feels like…a fishbone…”. Duh on me.
Now, I went to a pretty good EM residency, and while there I learned two things: the books say fishbones don’t show up on x-rays of the neck, and, fishbones sometimes show up on x-rays. I’m about 70% positive in my career…
So, I got an xray. See if you can spot the fishbone (hint: there’s an arrow pointing at it…)
So, it’s there… Now what… There are very few wrong answers. Call ENT, etc. My answer: go get it. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at GruntDoc*