If your doctor has ordered an imaging study for you, your doctor wants to know more about what is inside your body. Different imaging machines are used to show different things. The MRI machine is a 40 thousand pound magnet that uses a magnetic field, radio waves and a computer to gather very detailed information about a person’s body. The MRI does not hurt or damage the patient in any way. MRI is especially good at showing fluids and tissues, but also shows bones. Patients whose bodies contain magnetic metals or devices such as iron shavings, iron bullets, pacemakers, implanted hearing aids, aneurysm clips, or other types of magnetic metals will not be given MRI tests. Each patient is personally “screened” by our staff before entering the MRI suite. We ask that every patient call the imaging center before arriving so our staff may ask the patient questions to determine if the patient is eligible for imaging studies. Many surgically implanted devices are not magnetic, such as titanium knees, hips, and the like. Our staff will work with your doctor to determine which tests are best for you.
The CT machine is like a very fancy computerized x-ray machine. Most people are eligible for a CT study unless they are pregnant. Pregnant people are not usually given MRIs, CTs, or x-rays. If you are pregnant and your doctors wishes for you to have an imaging study, it will most likely be an ultrasound.
Ultrasound is commonly used to diagnose conditions in pregnant people and many other conditions as well, such as gallstones, blood clots, and many other conditions. Your doctor and our radiologists are the most qualified to decide what type of imaging studies you will need.
Sometimes a patient may need to not eat or drink before having CT or ultrasound images taken. Other times we may ask that you drink water or other substances prior to your CT or ultrasound appointment. The preparation for each patient is made on a case by case basis. It is therefore important to call the center and talk with our staff about the preparation you need.
Many patients wonder why their pictures must be looked at by a radiologist. Radiology is a very specialized and complicated field of medicine that is growing and changing by leaps and bounds. Radiologists have many years of special training and experience that teach them how to understand the images created by MRI, CT, x-ray and ultrasound. These images are often very complicated and even the reports dictated by the radiologists may be difficult or impossible for a patient to understand. Your doctor will help you understand what the radiologist’s report means to you.
You and your doctor will make the decision about your treatment. The radiologist will tell your doctor what can be “seen” on the images, but only you and your doctor can decide what the next steps are based on your personal health and body. Each case is unique. That’s why we fax the report to your doctor, so your doctor can make treatment recommendations. Sometimes your doctor may want to see the images. Other times your doctor may just read the report. It is different for every patient and every doctor. Your doctor may call our radiologists to talk to them about your results. Your doctor may even order more tests. Diagnostic imaging is just one component of your care. It is not the “final answer.” Often times patients say “I am in a lot of pain, but the report didn’t show anything abnormal.” Sometimes a patient’s images do not show anything out of the ordinary, even though the patient is in a lot of pain. Other times the patient’s images show many unordinary things, but the patient feels no pain at all. There is not necessarily a correlation between what is on the images and how the patient feels. Again, this is where your doctor comes in.
Radiologists do not usually talk about cause and effect in their reports. They usually talk about what they see on the images. Your doctor is the best person to use your imaging results in your care plan, just like your doctor uses your laboratory results in your care plan. Medicine is a very complicated science with many components. Our job is to give your doctor the best possible information we can about the images we have acquired.