Summarize the following:
Check to see what is printed on the films to determine they are yours and what part of the body is represented in the films. You should see your name and other identifying information like your birthdate. The name of the hospital or medical facility where the films were taken and the date the study was performed should be printed on each film. You do not want to look at someone else's films and become upset if you see an abnormality. Your expectations about what you will see are determined by what part of your body was studied. The CT of your brain will be compact with your brain encased inside the thin bone of your skull. The CT of your leg or arm will be compact but it will have length; the scan will have images of your bones and the surrounding soft tissue (muscle and fat). The CT of your abdomen will be large and very complex because you will be seeing things like your small intestines curled up like a snake right next to your kidneys, liver, spleen, etc. You can go to a website like https://www.imaios.com/en/e-Anatomy which offers short explanations of CT images of the different parts of the body. This will help you focus on what is important in each area of the body like the brain, chest, or pelvis. Use more than one website and search for websites that offer free images. If you have a printed CT scans, the films will be a little smaller than an opened New York Times newspaper. The best light source will be flat and around that size or a little larger. If your CT scan is on a computer disk, the computer screen is the "light source". If you have a large flat screen TV and DVR capability, find a scene where there is a very bright flash filling the screen and hit pause. It may not be easy to get the TV to shine bright enough. Try holding the films near any light source. You can try a lamp with the shade off, a fluorescent light fixture, or your computer screen. You may have to keep moving the films back and forth if the light source is small. You need to know if the CT scan images are presented in the transverse, coronal, or sagittal plane. You must have this information when you use the anatomy atlas as a reference. Imagine yourself standing up and the CT scanner machine is cutting you into slices like bread. The transverse plane would be bread slices that start at your head and end at your feet. The coronal plane would be bread slices that begin in the front and end at your back; your face, stomach, and toes would be in the first cuts and the back of your head, your buttocks, and your heels would be in the last cuts. The sagittal cuts would start at one ear and end at the other. The CT scanner is the machine that takes special X-ray films. The CT scanner uses focused X-ray beams that are shot through your body. A certain pattern is created when these X-rays strike a special detector. A computer connected to this detector creates images based upon this pattern. You lie on a table that moves in very small increments through a large tube. A picture is taken each time you are moved. Because the tube of the scanner surrounds you in a complete circle, pictures can be taken in the three planes with ease.
Read the information on the CT scan. Find a good light source. Do not get disoriented.