Hey what's going on guys and welcome to episode number 15 of the

physician assistant boards.com podcast and today I want to talk about

imaging studies. Specifically want to touch a little bit about chess x-ray, ultrasound, CT and MRI.

Everybody had a great new year as I'm recording this on January 2nd of 2014, so let's get started. So the first things we're going to talk about is the

chest x-ray. When ordering a chest x-ray, usually the standard is a PA film, which stands

for posterior anterior film and the way this is done is the

patient will stand with their back to the x-ray. Now the beam is going to enter

through the back which is posteriorly and will exit through the back, which is posteriorly, and will exit through the front, which is anteriorly.

And this is usually the way things are done.

Now, the opposite can be done, and it can be done as an AP, when the patient is unable to stand for whatever reason.

And usually this is going to be done in the ER or ICU when they have portable x-ray machines.

That is usually an AP view.

Now, the lateral view is done to identify

the location of certain infiltrates or effusions

that are seen, plural effusions. And usually the standard is to do two views of

the chest, so you're going to have a PA as well as a lateral done. The de-cubitous view, this is used to differentiate when you have consolidation or a plural

effusion and you're not quite sure which is which.

So what's going to happen is the patient is going to lay on their side and the chest x-ray is going to be taken and the

effusion will go in the form of gravity so gravity will take the effusion

down which will differentiate that from a from consolidation

consolidation will not move with gravity.

The lateral view will show effusion after about 75 millilaters of

...