Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

A radiologist saved my father’s life

Barbara Hamilton, MD
Physician
January 4, 2019
Share
Tweet
Share

My dad flew to California in the spring to meet his grandson, who was about five months old at the time. He wasn’t that interested in baby care. He mostly wanted to sight-see and spend the evenings watching TV. One weekday morning, he ventured out on a hike alone, while I was at work. He left at 9 a.m. and never came home.

We live at the base of a dusty mountain range. Mount San Jacinto rises 10,000 feet above the Coachella Valley floor. The mountains are beautiful, molding the dramatic desert light through the day. But they are dangerous — and sometimes deadly. My husband and I started to worry as it got dark, and dad still wasn’t home. But he’d been out late before, so we didn’t immediately panic. He called on his flip phone. He could see the lights of town from the mountain, and he thought he could make it down in an hour.

Hours later, he called to say that he could see the lights of town, and he might be home in 2 hours. Then he turned his phone off.

Hours after he’d lost the trail, he stumbled down/ across the rocky slope. His poor eyesight betraying him, he fell. He was unprepared for a night on the mountainside. He brought no food or water. He left his sweater on the bike I lent him that morning, at the steep, dusty trailhead below. He spent a 40-degree night in short sleeves, crouching for warmth.

He fell many times, trying to make it down. He later admitted to the trauma surgeon that he may have dropped 20 feet. What would that even feel like in the dark? I shuddered.

By the time he was found and airlifted from the mountain by helicopter, rescue hikers had spent hours trying to locate him, based on his descriptions of where he thought he might be.

He broke multiple ribs against a boulder. The ribs punctured his lung. Muscle breakdown products flowed through his blood, their units measured in thousands.

Yet more seriously, he had a small hemorrhage in front of his brainstem. This uncommon type of subdural versus epidural blood collection could have expanded to compress my dad’s brainstem — killing him. If the problem had gone unnoticed, and dad had turned or flexed his head just so, he may not have survived it. Many imaging experts could have missed this subtle finding, but Dr. Henry Jones saw it. A radiologist saved my dad’s life.

Most people walking down the street would not be able to tell you what a radiologist does. A radiologist is a physician who is educated through four years of undergraduate study, four years of medical school, and five years of residency. Most radiologists specialize further, training an additional one to three years. This additional training is called fellowship. As radiologists, or “rads,” we can see people’s insides. It’s a humbling privilege, fascinating work, and a high-stakes enterprise. You need to find everything that could threaten a person’s life, whether in five minutes or five years. These, sometimes, ominous discoveries can be buried in hundreds or even thousands of images.

Dr. Jones saves people on a daily basis through this work. He knows it, but not many other people do. He diagnoses treatable problems all day, every day — and rarely receives any recognition for it. I thanked him some days later, for making that critical discovery, for preventing my father’s premature death. Thank you, Henry.

Barbara Hamilton is an interventional radiologist and can be reached at Tired Superheroine and on Twitter @TSuperheroine.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

Prev

What’s barbaric in medicine?

January 3, 2019 Kevin 7
…
Next

It's time to study firearm morbidity and mortality as we do any other public health issue

January 4, 2019 Kevin 0
…

ADVERTISEMENT

Tagged as: Neurology, Radiology

Post navigation

< Previous Post
What’s barbaric in medicine?
Next Post >
It's time to study firearm morbidity and mortality as we do any other public health issue

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

More by Barbara Hamilton, MD

  • Physician negotiating: Go get what you’re worth

    Barbara Hamilton, MD
  • Why physicians should repeat themselves

    Barbara Hamilton, MD

Related Posts

  • How medical school saved this student’s life

    Natasha Abadilla
  • Here’s how poetry saved my life in medical school

    Tolu Kehinde, MD
  • A father and grandfather: A patient’s life lived in full

    Ton La, Jr., MD, JD
  • Ethical humanism: life after #medbikini and an approach to reimagining professionalism

    Jay Wong
  • The life cycle of medication consumption

    Fery Pashang, PharmD
  • My first end-of-life conversation

    Shereen Jeyakumar

More in Physician

  • Why this doctor hid her story for a decade

    Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH
  • When errors of nature are treated as medical negligence

    Howard Smith, MD
  • The hidden chains holding doctors back

    Neil Baum, MD
  • 9 proven ways to gain cooperation in health care without commanding

    Patrick Hudson, MD
  • Why physicians deserve more than an oxygen mask

    Jessie Mahoney, MD
  • More than a meeting: Finding education, inspiration, and community in internal medicine [PODCAST]

    American College of Physicians & The Podcast by KevinMD
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • The silent toll of ICE raids on U.S. patient care

      Carlin Lockwood | Policy
    • Why does rifaximin cost 95 percent more in the U.S. than in Asia?

      Jai Kumar, MD, Brian Nohomovich, DO, PhD and Leonid Shamban, DO | Meds
    • Why recovery after illness demands dignity, not suspicion

      Trisza Leann Ray, DO | Physician
    • Why medical students are trading empathy for publications

      Vijay Rajput, MD | Education
    • Addressing the physician shortage: How AI can help, not replace

      Amelia Mercado | Tech
    • Why this doctor hid her story for a decade

      Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH | Physician
  • Past 6 Months

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • How scales of justice saved a doctor-patient relationship

      Neil Baum, MD | Physician
    • A faster path to becoming a doctor is possible—here’s how

      Ankit Jain | Education
    • Make cognitive testing as routine as a blood pressure check

      Joshua Baker and James Jackson, PsyD | Conditions
    • How dismantling DEI endangers the future of medical care

      Shashank Madhu and Christian Tallo | Education
    • The broken health care system doesn’t have to break you

      Jessie Mahoney, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • Why this doctor hid her story for a decade

      Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH | Physician
    • Reimagining Type 2 diabetes care with nutrition for remission [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • How AI is revolutionizing health care through real-world data

      Sujay Jadhav, MBA | Tech
    • Ambient AI: When health monitoring leaves the screen behind

      Harvey Castro, MD, MBA | Tech
    • How kindness in disguise is holding women back in academic medicine

      Sylk Sotto, EdD, MPS, MBA | Conditions
    • Why physician voices matter in the fight against anti-LGBTQ+ laws

      BJ Ferguson | Policy

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

View 12 Comments >

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • The silent toll of ICE raids on U.S. patient care

      Carlin Lockwood | Policy
    • Why does rifaximin cost 95 percent more in the U.S. than in Asia?

      Jai Kumar, MD, Brian Nohomovich, DO, PhD and Leonid Shamban, DO | Meds
    • Why recovery after illness demands dignity, not suspicion

      Trisza Leann Ray, DO | Physician
    • Why medical students are trading empathy for publications

      Vijay Rajput, MD | Education
    • Addressing the physician shortage: How AI can help, not replace

      Amelia Mercado | Tech
    • Why this doctor hid her story for a decade

      Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH | Physician
  • Past 6 Months

    • What’s driving medical students away from primary care?

      ​​Vineeth Amba, MPH, Archita Goyal, and Wayne Altman, MD | Education
    • How scales of justice saved a doctor-patient relationship

      Neil Baum, MD | Physician
    • A faster path to becoming a doctor is possible—here’s how

      Ankit Jain | Education
    • Make cognitive testing as routine as a blood pressure check

      Joshua Baker and James Jackson, PsyD | Conditions
    • How dismantling DEI endangers the future of medical care

      Shashank Madhu and Christian Tallo | Education
    • The broken health care system doesn’t have to break you

      Jessie Mahoney, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • Why this doctor hid her story for a decade

      Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH | Physician
    • Reimagining Type 2 diabetes care with nutrition for remission [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • How AI is revolutionizing health care through real-world data

      Sujay Jadhav, MBA | Tech
    • Ambient AI: When health monitoring leaves the screen behind

      Harvey Castro, MD, MBA | Tech
    • How kindness in disguise is holding women back in academic medicine

      Sylk Sotto, EdD, MPS, MBA | Conditions
    • Why physician voices matter in the fight against anti-LGBTQ+ laws

      BJ Ferguson | Policy

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

A radiologist saved my father’s life
12 comments

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...