Scan type

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

What kind of scan did the 20th century doctors do on Pavel Chekov? http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:What_kind_of_scan??t=20161029160807

 

[Tosk]

Fundoscopic examination is just done using an ophthalmoscope, so they wouldn't need to "scan" him with anything.

Edit: D'oh, you mean the scan images on the lightbox! Looks like a CAT scan. But is it Chekov's, or just simple set dressing to make the place look more hospital-y? If they did a CAT scan, why would the doctor mention using fundoscopic examination?

 

[FormerLurker]

Because it's 1986, he's old school and doesn't trust those newfangled technologies, and I'm making this up as I go?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

D'oh, you mean the scan images on the lightbox! Looks like a CAT scan. But is it Chekov's, or just simple set dressing to make the place look more hospital-y?

It seems to me that you would not want to have anybody else's scans posted up in the operating room when you're operating on a man that is dying. Does anyone know how to read scans that can tell me whether they showed someone with a brain bleed?

And I looked up fundocopic - it refers to looking at the inside of the eye (presumably to see Pavel's bleeding) If you wanted to see details of someone's brain, you'd still have to do a brain scan.

 

[Tosk]

That's why Bones tells him that fundoscopic examination is unrevealing in cases like this.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Yes. So they did both maybe, but never mentioned the imaging.

 

[Timo]

The thing is, X-raying would be time-consuming - especially if you wanted to see brain haemorrhage showing up properly in CT, because (at least back in the day) you'd want to inject a contrasting agent of some sort. Did that really happen before the "emergency surgery" or not? After all, the doctors apparently got the diagnosis wrong... And drilling holes in Chekov's head would probably not require precision imagery: cranial pressure isn't relieved particularly locally, and they could probably guess on where the hematoma roughly was simply by seeing which part of Chekov's nogging was bruised externally.

Perhaps those images on the light boards are of a previous patient exactly because of the hurry?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I suppose. I don't know much about medical stuff, just what I've heard over the years or can look up online.

 

[Timby]

I bet the hospital's Medicaid reimbursement process for Chekov must have been a bitch.