Monday, September 26, 2016

Social media solves a medical riddle

This foreign body was removed from a non-healing abdominal wall incision in an elderly lady with many comorbidities and previous operations. It was a rigid plastic tube which was 7 cm long and 2-3 mm in diameter. There were four transverse grooves at either end.
Physicians caring for her were unable to identify it. One of them emailed me the photos and asked for help. I didn't know what was, but I knew where to look for the answer.

I tried a Google image search, but the brownish discoloration of the object was interpreted as wood by the algorithm. None of the many images on Google resembled the foreign body.

Next, I posted the photo and a brief summary of the history to Twitter and Figure 1, a website with over 1 million medical professionals as subscribers.

On both sites, many guesses were made. Most thought it was a broken piece of a drain or tube of some sort.

The correct answer came 30 minutes later when Twitter follower Filippe Vasconcellos ‏ (@fvguima) identified it as a Q-tip. He then posted a photograph of a slightly different brand of Q-tip that measured about 7 cm long and contained similar grooves at each end.
A few minutes later on Figure 1, a psychology student who calls himself "Rogue" also got it right.

Here are some statistics from Twitter Analytics. During the 24 hours after the photograph was posted on twitter, 5653 people had viewed the tweet and 1412 (25%) had clicked on some part of it— most often the photograph.

On Figure 1 more than 50 users commented on the picture.

No one knows how the Q-tip ended up in the wound or where the cotton from both ends went. I suspect either the patient or someone taking care of the wound was cleaning it and accidentally left the Q-tip in place. The cotton probably was broken down over time or fell off and exited the wound in whatever drainage was present.

I emailed the surgeon who had contacted me to tell him the answer, and he was delighted. He also had never heard of Figure 1 before and thought it was very interesting.

So the next time someone tells you social media is a waste of time for doctors, share this story.






2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't see it as a waste of time except for the constant run of wah wah wah over on a very well known blog. For people that are so smart, they don't seem to be reading social media that warns them about the trials, truth, and terrors of med school and residency.

We all feel underpaid, overused by the man. Welcome to the club. Many in my profession use it to educate ourselves and work problems together. I suggest it as a better way than wah wah wah'ing all over. Those of us future patients are NOT going to want to go to a doctor who tells us to suck it up when they can't.

Skeptical Scalpel said...

Good points. Thanks.

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