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Case 7

On a night shift in the A&E x-ray department, only one radiographer was handling general radiography examinations. A 58 year old male patient entered the hospital, due to a slip and fall, with injuries to his head. The patient was obviously drunk, with a limited level of consciousness, but he could still manage to walk into the x-ray room by himself. Despite the patient being drunk, the radiographer carried out the x-ray examination anyway. The quality of the radiograph was poor because the patient could not remain still during the examination. The radiographer repeated the examination by putting a restriction on the patient's hands. Again the radiograph was still unacceptable. The radiographer attempted to complete the examination two more times, with additional immobilization, but still failed to produce an acceptable image. Finally the radiographer gave up and reported the case to the referring doctor.

The next day, the patient had recovered from his drunken episode and found that his hands were red due to the restrictions added by the radiographer, but still no quality radiograph had been taken.