Dr. Grumpy: "This is Dr. Grumpy, returning a page."
Dr. Equine: "Hi, thanks for calling me back. I'm a horse veterinarian at Grumpyville Racetrack. Do you have a patient named Mr. Adipose?"
Dr. Grumpy: "Uh, yeah... I just saw him this morning."
Dr. Equine: "You ordered an MRI on him?"
Dr. Grumpy: "Um... What does this have to do with the racetrack?"
Dr. Equine: "I'm going to guess he's a large fellow."
Dr. Grumpy: "Why..."
Dr. Equine: "He just called my office to see if we had an MRI for horses he could use."
"Mr. Adipose" would make a great name for a race horse.
ReplyDeleteMight make a great name, but he can never run.
ReplyDeleteWell at least he was being realistic; I have had to have a number of MRI's and those machines are snug inside. This is coming from a woman who is a size 8 and 5'6". I can only imagine how a large person would feel getting squashed into the tube!
ReplyDeleteA guy is a guy
ReplyDeleteAnd you can try
To diagnose him with an MRI
But this won't fly
If the guy
Is the famous Mr. Ad!
AFAIK, all MRI tunnels are standard size. The tables we use for horses are rated for 1500+ pounds, though. That's why we can scan heads, distal limbs, or small horses (foals, ponies, miniatures, etc.) but not adult horse abdomens or chests.
ReplyDeleteMy apologies to the claustrophobic.
That's just common horse sense!
ReplyDelete11:39 anon, there's open MRI, which is used for larger patients and people who are extremely claustrophobic. Whenever I've called the imaging center to schedule and MRI, they ask my height and weight, and when I tell them they just say "ok." I would imagine that if I told them I weighed 400 lbs that would lead to a discussion about open MRI. I know that imaging center has it, although I've never used it.
ReplyDeleteI do ultrasound. On humans. On occasion, one of us has been heard to whisper -- looks like we're gonna need the horse transducer on this one!
ReplyDeleteI've heard of using zoo equipment for obese people. Not kidding.
ReplyDeleteOne of the hospitals near me had an ad campaign that included the detail that they had an MRI machine suitable for very large people.
ReplyDeleteThe zoo thing is just a rumour. Can't think of a single zoo that can afford an MRI, and very rarely a C/T either. Veterinary teaching hospitals or maybe a HUGE equine practice (the race track guys from Kentucky come to mind) would be the best bets to find a table that can hold the weight, but as the person above mentioned that's more for extremities/head than whole body since they won't fit in there anyway.
ReplyDeleteMy dad is a big man, 6 foot 8, 550 pounds. We live in a pretty rural area where medical advances can take a while to show up. Ten years ago I drove him one state over to a very large state colleges school of veterinary medicine for an open Mri of his spine. Luckily things have improved medically here, dad had a cardiac Cath last year and his dr chose to go through his wrist as he thought it would be much easier for him leverage wise.
ReplyDelete@The Patient Doc, I did a training rotation in a place that did bariatric surgery, and we DID use zoo equipment for them. There is no nice way to tell someone they have to have their scan done at the zoo because they are too big for the people equipment.
ReplyDeleteToday, there are MRI machines out there that have up to a 70cm opening. I service one in particular at a large equine medical center that is a standard machine, exactly like those that are used in hospitals and clinics, but has a modified table for use on thoroughbred race horses. The table holds up to 2000 pounds and has a top cushion that is 18 in thick. The entire horse will not fit into even a 70 cm opening, but it is useful for doing orthopedic studies of the extremities and of the head and neck.
ReplyDeleteJust be sure he uses the MRI that Miss Lodestone sells. You know, because it has 75% less x-rays/radiation than before, thus rendering it much safer.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about MRI's but when my husband shattered both bones of his lower leg into splinters, to put his big thick bones back together, they sent to the Vet hospital for the screws and hardware they use for Draft horses.
ReplyDeleteHorrific. Abysmal. Disgusting.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I understand that being very fat has health consequences. But that doesn't mean that fat people need to be treated like third class citizens.
Back when my leg was so infected that I spent over two weeks in the hospital the idiot doctor wanted an MRI set taken. This was in 2003, when MRI machines were still fairly uncommon. I was told that the table for the hospital's sole machine could only take up to 250 lbs. He said he contacted his office who said that there were "no machines nearby that could handle more weight."
So what did he suggest? He said he was going to call the ZOO to ask if they could help.
Embarrassing. Humiliating.
When I got out of the hospital I contacted the companies that make the MRIs and asked, "Do you make machines that can handle {my weight at the time}." Every one of them said, "Of course we do!" and each gave me a list of machines available within a 10 mile radius.
There were over a dozen, three of which were in parts of the hospital complex I'd been in!
My last MRI was about 5 years ago. I weigh about 400 lbs and it was tight but not impossible. The biggest problem I had was the one fool tech who decided to hand me my (metal) cane while I was sitting on the table. The cane missed my head by about a half-inch as the magnet sucked it inside.
Moose, you are hilarious!
ReplyDeletePerhaps we should stop using the abbrev. MRI, to remind people that M stands for MAGNET!