Curtis Carpenter's Page

"We can't x-ray him, he's too big!"...This was a statement I had from a radiology student earlier today when approached with an abdominal x-ray on a morbidly obese patient. My answer? "Too bad, figure it out". Yes, the patient was on the upper end of 400 pounds, and yes, he was extremely difficult to radiograph, however, it had to be done. All too often a student (or even a seasoned technologist for that matter) will come to wits end on a proper approach to imaging the morbidly obese, and… Continue

First I'd like to say that I try to steer away from politics on this blog. This blog's primary purpose is for education and I don't think creating a segregation of our political dichotomy is a smart way of encouraging readership. With that said, we have a major problem in Washington. Sure, there are differing views on how to improve the economy, lower unemployment, how to conduct our defense department, so on and so forth. However, one thing that I think most people would agree upon, if… Continue

How many times have you been asked, "Are you a Doctor?", or after a radiograph is taken a patient asks, "So is it broken?", or even when it's explicitly stated that you are not a physician, a patient says, "Come on, you've seen enough of these. Do I have cancer?". I'm sure the answer to the number of times you've heard these questions is anywhere from once to hundreds of thousands. A lot of times it's very tempting to answer these questions in order to prevent confrontation with a patient or to… Continue

A common question from a lot of patients is "Isn't radiation bad for me?" or "How much radiation am I going to receive from this x-ray?" or "Is this exam going to give me cancer?" Those aren't dumb questions and honestly, they're very difficult questions to answer in terms that a patient can understand. Better yet, they're difficult questions to answer in terms that a physicist can understand. I'm going to try and attempt the impossible and give a "layman's" explanation to some of these… Continue