Brain CT Scans in Clinical Practice

Book excerpt: Across emergency rooms all over the world, thousands of patients are referred for brain CT scans daily. A radiologist often has to interpret the scan or a consultation has to be made to a neuros- geon to review the scan. Most of this happens late at night and is a signi?cant source of discontent. Thus having frontline phy- cians to be pro?cient in interpreting the emergency brain CT scan improves the ef?ciency of the whole pathway of care and is pot- tially life saving as time is of the essence for many patients with severe brain injury or stroke. Underlying all of the above and the primary reason for writing this book is because the skill required to determine an immediate life threatening abnormality in a brain CT scan is so basic and can be learned in a short time by people of various backgrounds and certainly by all physicians. ‘Indeed the emergency head CT scan is comparable to an electrocardiogram in usefulness and most de?nitely as easy to learn. ’ This book is therefore written for ca- givers the world over to demystify the emergency CT brain scan and to empower them to serve their patients better. It is obvious to me from the response from people I have had opportunity to teach this subject that not only is there a desire to learn this basic skill but also people learn it quickly and wonder why it has not been presented so simply before.