9:14am Monday 23rd November 2009
LAST week was radiology awareness week and to celebrate Warrington Hospital’s department let the Warrington Guardian in for a tour.
For many people their only experience of radiology is having an X-ray after being admitted through A&E, but the department is far more wide reaching.
As well as X-Rays radiologists and radiographers can give patients ultrasounds, CT scans, MRI scans, mammograms, osteoporosis scans, heart catheters and nuclear medicine treatments.
They are trained to spot tiny fractures or any abnormalities, and highlight their presence to doctors.
“A huge proportion of patients coming through the hospital have an X-ray or some sort of imaging investigation,” said radiographer Louise Harding.
But before they come to the department decisions have to be made on whether they need the procedure, as most, except MRI and ultrasound, require a small dose of radiation. Unless the benefits outweigh the risks, the procedure does not go ahead.
The equipment in the department can help diagnose problems with almost every part of the body.
Nuclear medicine, which looks at the functioning of organs like the heart, can diagnose conditions at very early stages showing things X-rays won’t.
A new dexer scanner tests for bone diseases like osteoporosis, and live imaging can examine the bowels by putting dye into them and screening as it moves through.
Ultrasounds are used predominantly to scan expectant mums’ tummies, but are also used to check soft tissue around the abdomen, stomach and liver.
CT scanners give 3D images of body parts and are often used for trauma patients and the staging of cancers.
MRI scans use magnetic resonance and take around 20 minutes. Radiographers using this are well used to calming patients experiencing claustrophobia, as they are moved into a narrow tube and unable to move.
It is MRI scans that use magnets, so no metal is allowed, including pacemakers or any other internal metals.
The A&E department has its own X-ray area, and there is a portable X-ray machine that can be moved from ward to ward.
As a teaching department it is well used by students from Liverpool and Manchester, and employs around 60 people.
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