I saw something I'd never seen before last night and thought it was worth mentioning. I went to get a patient for a chest without last night. It was ordered on a 30 something year old woman in the ER who hadn't even had a chest x-ray yet so I was a little curious as to why we were doing the exam in the first place. Her history only said shortness of breath. I don't know how it is at other facilities but MOST of the time at ours, a chest x-ray is the first step. Well, it turns out the exam was actually ordered on the wrong person! This happens at least once a day in our ER and we techs spend a lot of extra time hunting down correct patients and orders!
Anyway, it turns out the exam was actually supposed to be ordered on a 50 something year old man who was complaining of pain in the center of his chest. He had in fact had a chest x-ray prior to the ordering of the CT and the report mentioned a peritracheal and hilar fullness and recommended a CT chest with contrast. It turns out the patient was allergic to contrast! When I finally got the correct patient scanned I saw a pericardial effusion! It looked huge to me!! I have never seen one before! The CT report stated that it should be checked again in 3 months so I assume it wasn't too bad... but I think that explains why the patient's chest was hurting so much!
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