I’m probably stupid, I know I’m terrible at haggling and such, but when we bought our last car I straight up told the guy that I was horrible at these things, just give me a price, and if I can afford it I’ll get it, it if I later find out I could have saved any significant money (was a $60,000 car so I wasn’t going…

Yep, I was about to post this:

I’d try to reassure you. Depends a bit on how close you were to the actual x-ray beam. One way to think about it is, if you’re about 3 feet away from the beam of a standard x-ray examination (say, a chest x-ray in a person), your radiation dose from scatter is about the same dose you would get from eating 2 bananas…

I can’t speak to the CYA culture of medicine. I’m in pediatrics and I would argue we’ve gone too far the other direction, that clinicians are scared to order tests when they really should be (a recent example - a clinician was worried a child head a skull fracture “but I’m not worried enough that I need a CT.” CT is…

Gradients!

That ones obligatory in all of these threads.

They do, and many places use the handheld wand metal detectors too. Won’t detect the really small stuff though.

A little bit weird. We tend to have our patients disrobe, just to be safe. In addition to the rare but possible projectile effect, metal in the magnetic field can degrade the image, especially when you’re looking at small structures like in the brain.

Oh man, I have no idea what I was exposed to in high school. And my undergrad degree is in aerospace engineering and I know I worked with some weird-ass chemicals (propellants) during my senior design work. I’m also pretty sure my high school building was about 83% asbestos.

Haha, I love it. I even take of my wedding ring, knowing it’s not ferromagnetic in the slightest. Just my own little neurosis.

Haha, yeah. I’m actually one of the radiologists working in there. I know it’s an irrational fear, I have no reason to think I have unknown metal on me (especially because I go in and out of the MR suites all the time). It’s just that voice in the back of my mind like “maybe you have a sliver somewhere from the…

I would try to reassure you. CT scan doses were already on the decline back then, and they’re even better now. If medical CT doses cause cancer, data suggests it’s at a rate near to or less than 1 in 10,000. Normal activities statistically more dangerous than a CT scan include swimming, being a regular passenger in a…

Yep, MR is perfectly safe, I know this (ionizing radiation at medical diagnostic doses is also perfectly safe). I’m just paranoid about projectile effects.

The projectile effect. I know they’re safe, I work with them every day (although one of our satellite clinics did have a quench this week). But I always have the thought in the back of my mind of a sliver of retained metal somewhere on me - an irrational fear, and it doesn’t effect my work, but it’s there.

We also have research magnets strong enough to cause neuronal excitation (and seizures) - those fields actually are kind of intimidating. Also, to be slightly pedantic, depending on pulse sequences used the stronger Bo fields of the MR scanners lead to more heat deposition in tissues (specific absorption rate/SAR); we…

It is fine. Magnetic fields are safe at diagnostic strengths (some of the really strong fields can cause neuronal excitation and seizures if patients are moved too quickly in them, but a 1.5 or 3 Tesla magnetic field is fine).

Yep, aware of that (I’m a radiologist). I worry about projectiles. We had a magnet quench just this week for someone forgetting to take scissors out of their scrubs before entering the suite.

I teach rdiation physics to our residents and medical students and always try to mention this. Will definitely pick this book up.

To the guy in Appalachia: the research triangle area is affordable, metropolitan, and liberal. Forget the mountain folk. Nice lakes hereabouts, too.

Hope your son’s doing well.