Ever lost something really important?
Ever lost something really important?
75 comments
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Not actually that rare to see. Reabsorption of bone is fairly common place in non unionized fractures that don't end up getting good blood flow. Osteoclasts will breakdown the bone fragments that don't unionize, especially if the bone isn't really responsible for weight bearing.
The only thing thats fake about this is a group of doctors being mystified by any of it.
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Reabsorption of bone is fairly common place in non unionized fractures that don’t end up getting good blood flow. Osteoclasts will breakdown the bone fragments that don’t unionize
This is why it's so important to talk to your coworkers and get organized, if those bones were unionized this never would've happened.
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Bernie your bones, bro.
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The only thing thats fake about this is a group of doctors being mystified by any of it.
Sounds more like a teaching opportunity, which was interpreted as an 'ah, they have no idea what is going on' moment.
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Maybe? But again, reabsorption is so commonplace that it's not particularly a significant teaching opportunity. I
f we're assuming that what this person claimed is true, the only real educational thing about this is how important it is to stick to the prescribed follow up care. This more than likely would have been caught during follow up imaging post reconstruction.
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First of all, there's not a lot of orthopedic surgery going on in rural medicine. Secondly, one of my first jobs as a provider involved traveling to provide specialty care to rural clinics and native reservations in one of the poorer states in the union.
You are correct that rural medicine is on the struggle bus, especially in states like mine that refused to expand Medicaid coverage.....but your observation just doesn't really apply to this particular case.
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My granma had a spinal disc missing entirely. It was just gone. Must've broken it at some point and didn't realize. She was mostly bedridden and moved very slowly with a walker, needed a lot of support. May she rest in peace (death unrelated to missing disc)
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Could also be bone eating bacteria.
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Or bone eating surgeons
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It's prob boneitis
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Alas, my only regret!
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Clearly the most obvious answer is bone-eating bones. Dirty cannibals.
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Prob not, osteomyelitis is pretty nasty and would have been cause for revisional intervention. The limb would have been visibly swollen and the post op wounds prob would have been weeping a bunch of nasty pus.
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Or the moopsy.
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Another new fear now. Yay.
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I'm hearing that she should have joined a union?
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Does this bone not assist with weight bearing?
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Not really during normal ambulation, it mainly aids in stability and in certain range of motions in the ankle. Even less so in post traumatic reconstructions like in this particular image.
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Wouldn't the patient miss the support that bone provided?!
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Nah, the fibula doesn't really bear much weight, it mainly helps with ankle stability and helps with ankle rotation. Things that probably aren't really a factor after the reconstruction that this patient acquired after their accident.
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Or, when his leg was being put back together they just straight up forgot to put it in during surgery.
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Haha, nah. You typically don't excise bone fragments when you plan on putting them back together. That would force you to unnecessarily remove a bunch of soft tissue that surrounds/attaches to the bone.
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Yeah, I was thinking more like it was shattered and they forgot to put in the titanium rod replacement.
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Really unlikely... It would be hard to miss a shattered tibia if you are already placing hardware in the fibula. Orthopedic surgery isn't really a gentle process, you are usually really moving the limb around a lot and limbs get really floppy when you have unsupportive fractures.
Plus, all hardware is tagged and tracked before, throughout, and after the operation. Mistakes happen, but it usually involves accidentally leaving a foreign body, and usually involves supplies that aren't specific to the individual surgery like gauze, sponges, or clamps.
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You say it's all tagged, but people, even recently have died or sued hospitals all the time for them screwing that up.
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Any examples of orthopedists forgetting to install hardware......? Not exactly sure how you would go about forgetting to do the surgery you are currently doing. Nor can I really understand how not installing orthopedic hardware would really endanger a patient's overall health.
Like I said mistakes happen, but generally it's forgetting to take something out, not forgetting to put something in.
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Maybe it was a teaching hospital like on the tv show scrubs?
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Nah, I practice at a teaching hospital. Knowing about reabsorption is stuff you learn when you learn about osteoclasts in med school. If you make it to a residency without knowing about osteoclasts, something horrible has happened.
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Nah i mean the teaching doctor might take the opportunity to show the residents an example of it, and the patient perspective given here is totally off, but they're just guessing why a bunch of doctors are all gathered around to look at the xray.
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75 comments