This young gentleman came in with dyspnea(problems breathing), duh!! The top xray shows a huge pleural effusion with compressed lung. The post-thoracentesis (sucking fluid out of the chest) chest xray shows a decreased effusion, but the lung is still pretty collapsed. They brought this patient and his xrays the day after. I was surprised the guy looked as good as he did with his lung still the way it was. Also surprised they did not put a chest tube in when the lung did not re-expand.

Then they decided to re-tap his lung. Of course there techniques were non-sterile, but even more surprising is that they stuck a needle in his chest without doing an exam to see where the fluid ends/begins. Of course, it is hard to miss the fluid, but normally we examine the pt first. When I tried to explain this they just blew me off. Then I told the patient to let us know if he has any pain or problems breathing(they stuck the needle very deep and I was worried they would hit his lung). The doc responded, "if we tell our patients that, then they will all complain of pain". It was such a ridiculous statement, I couldn't respond. Oh well, inshala!!