Name That Diagnosis

March 7th, 2005

Filed under: Medicine

This one is fairly straight-forward and is mostly for the non-physician readers — just to see if they’ve been paying attention.

A 17 year-old male comes into the clinic Friday afternoon complaining of pain and swelling along the outer aspect of his right hand. It seems that early the week before he had gotten into an argument with his girlfriend and, out of frustration, punched the wall.

X-rays were obtained (sorry for the poor quality of the scan, this is my first time trying to scan an x-ray).

What is the diagnosis?

x-ray of the right hand
Click on the image for a large view

Hint: Read the review of Birds of Prey #78

Answer: (highlight with mouse to read)
Boxer’s Fracture

Here’s an annotated version of the x-ray.

Here’s a brief article on the injury.

8 Responses to “ Name That Diagnosis ”

  1. Dave Lartigue
    March 7th, 2005 at 10:54 am

    “he had gotten into an argument with his girlfriend and, out of frustration, punched the wall…What is the diagnosis?”

    Dumbass.

  2. Scott
    March 7th, 2005 at 11:03 am
    Official Comment

    Well, yeah. That was pretty much a given.

  3. PGY-3
    March 7th, 2005 at 5:27 pm

    Great idea! I like short clinical cases with pictures. Especially hiding the answer text as white on white background. We have more cases on http://ClinicalCases.blogspot.com

  4. PGY-3
    March 7th, 2005 at 6:31 pm

    By the way, it may be better to take pictures of x-rays with a digital camera and then upload them on your website. It works well, especially with bigger pictures, like CXR, CT, that are difficult to scan.

  5. Aaron Sapp
    March 8th, 2005 at 8:03 am

    I tell patients that the wall almost always wins these confrontations.

  6. Simon
    March 8th, 2005 at 8:15 pm

    This is why I’d make a lousy doctor – my diagnosis based on the x-ray was ‘bendy-bone’

  7. Scott
    March 8th, 2005 at 9:48 pm
    Official Comment

    No, you can still make it as a doctor. Just think “bendy bone” to yourself and tell the patient “fracture.” Better yet, share the bendy bone term with the patient, it helps them understand medicine better when you put it in simple terms.

  8. riverschiro
    April 23rd, 2010 at 7:23 am

    Bar room fracture

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