Medmastery’s chest x-ray algorithm—a systematic approach for evaluating any chest x-ray

You're looking at a patient's chest x-ray and you've identified an abnormality–great! But how do you make sure you're not missing something else? In this video from our Chest X-ray Essentials course, you'll master a powerful step-by-step algorithm that will make sure you never miss a significant problem again.

This video was taken from our Chest X-ray Essentials course. If you want to watch all the teaching videos that lead up to the algorithm, then take the course and register for the Medmastery membership.

Make sure to download the chest x-ray algorithm below!

In case you still haven’t seen the other free chest x-ray videos, here they are again:

• Watch video #1: The importance of grayscale
• Watch video #2: The importance of overlap
• Watch video #3: The importance of shapes and key landmarks
• Watch video #4: How pathology changes the grayscale

Have thoughts? Let us know in the comments section!

[00:00:00] What will I gain from this video? In this video, you'll learn about our diagnostic algorithm and our checklist. You have ordered a chest x-ray examination and you identify an obvious abnormality within the right upper hemithorax. Understandably, you're very excited. However, in your excitement, you may have missed other more subtle pathology. To avoid missing important findings, it's important to use a systematic approach when analyzing a chest x-ray image. Our

[00:00:30] approach looks at the anatomical structures, from the center, working out. We start with the trachea and bronchi, then the heart, the mediastinum, the hila, the lungs, the pleura, and the chest wall. Only after you've examined all of these areas is the visual phase of interpretation complete. To help you with the interpretive process, we have created a step by step algorithm. As part of the algorithm, we have a checklist. Here, is a sample checklist of the trachea.

[00:01:00] Forget about the content, for now, you will review this later. But we have checklists for all of the seven areas used in the systematic approach. So, if you identify an abnormality, we're happy for you. In this case, we think the abnormality is located within the lung. So, we review the lung checklist. And after the lung checklist is completed, we then start with the trachea and bronchi checklist, the heart, the mediastinum, the hila, the pleura, and the chest wall,

[00:01:30] until all of the checklists are completed. What if we don't see the abnormality and we don't want to miss anything? Then we take the step by step algorithm and we go through all of the checklists in order. So, with the algorithmic approach and the printouts, you are now ready for the case studies. I suggest you print out the PDFs and use them while reviewing the cases in the workshop.