Paul McCoubrie

BJS Academy Welcome back to Dr Paul McCoubrie’s a 'view from the dark side' — a series looking at the world of surgery through the lens of a radiologist. _______________________ Every few years a campaign is laun...

It used to be a problem in the private sector only back in the mid 00s. But at least lung cancer screening with CT has now been proven and gone mainstream. And bowel cancer screening too.

Sadly it’s NHS wide now. The thresholds for scanning are nonexistent

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🏆ARTICLE OF THE MONTH: All roads lead to outsourcing
➡️ buff.ly/EjI95dt

With demand rising, workforce gaps widening, and costs escalating, is outsourcing a solution — or a symptom?

@pmccoubrie.bsky.social takes on the realities behind outsourced radiology

#medsky #surgsky

Erm, you *seem* to have boobs growing out of your neck. I would see someone about that

No horizontal lines in the brain, y’see

[taps side of forehead, nods smiling]

It’s a known thing

We are brought up in a horizontal world & have strong perceptual bias toward horizontal lines. There are optical illusions that will show this

It means pneumothorax and rib # are easier to see if you turn the CXR 90 degrees (as they are vertical things normally)

I teach this!

Might see you there !

A screenshot of my ECR 26 session in Vienna in early march 2026 where I will be giving two back to back lectures about actionable reporting

Any radiologists on here? If so, are any are going to ECR 2026 in vienna next week?

Might see you there. Particularly if you come to this session, a rollercoaster of a session - perfectly serious insights wrapped up in a cloak of humour.

St G’s reunion!

To some, “collimation” is just an 11 letter word…

Ah, that’ll be the Proustian effects of the unsweetened gooseberry.

Add sugar and the fleeting memories of grandma’s flour-speckled apron, grazed knees and jumpers as goalposts just melts away, like tears in the rain

If there was ever a t-shirt for radiologists, this is it

Nice to see a bit of Torquemada sneaking in there.

Overcalls and unnecessary hedging by younger #teleradiology doctors must be tackled if we're to solve the problem of sub-standard reporting, says @pmccoubrie.bsky.social. buff.ly/VmAHcNe #Radiology #outsourcing

A mushroom shaped like a thingy

As ever, my intentions are perfectly serious, clothed in humour

Forbidden sausage

Episode III - ‘Mordor on the Dancefloor’

Episode I - ‘Hard Hobbit to Break’
Episode II - ‘Now that’s ENT-ertainment!’

(Cont’d on page 92)

I am assuming you mean ‘pointed at’? If so, I might join you. We would do this whilst laughing, in my mind

Not my hospital. Not even UK. But, yes, someone somewhere has pissed off the cleaners

Huzzah!

No. Never, richard. Never

A radiology report with the words ‘evidence of pacemaker’ highlighted

From one my regular correspondents:

“Evidence of pacemaker”

Isn’t it beautifully awful?

Ah, crap. So sorry to hear that.

Queen’s Square is the best of the best so no doubt she got given the best chance.

I think you are on to something. There are definitely odd verbal trends in medicine that make no sense

The latest one to have seized the U.K. is ‘new oxygen requirement’ instead of dyspnoea or breathlessness. Boils my piss

I might start a backlash. PEs on a CTPA? “Conclusion: affirmative for PE”

I’m reassured. But why do I hear the word ‘negative’ all that time? Our residents have all started writing ‘negative for pulmonary embolus’ and such like. It drives me up the wall. Such odd jargon.

My adage is that you shouldn’t use language in a radiology report that you wouldn’t use in the pub.

Why ‘negative’? I’ve never understood that ‘murcanism. Why not ‘normal’? Does everyone stateside come out in a rash when they say it?

An annotated abdominal radiograph with lots of normal structures lablled A-S

The first FRCR anatomy exam is fast approaching. Test your knowledge against this seemingly innocuous annotated abdominal radiograph. Answers in a week