Opinion ID: 1773140
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: fracture and dislocation

Text: When Dr. Clayton was asked to examine the x-ray films of Thompson's hand, he was looking for fractured bones as well as any dislocation at the joints. Soft tissues such as ligaments and muscles would not show up on an x-ray, and therefore any actual stretching or tearing of such tissues would not be revealed by x-rays. However, dislocation (subluxation) of the bones at a joint will be revealed by x-ray and indicate substantial disruption of the attached ligaments. A bone may be fractured when it is broken in two or cracked. Dr. Clayton would have been interested in a fracture of this type. Another type of fracture is an avulsion fracture caused when a ligament is torn loose from the bone to which it has been attached and carries with it a piece of the bone. It was this last type of fracture Dr. Clayton was charged with negligently failing to detect. Dr. Robertson testified he found three avulsion fractures. Finally, as above noted, in examining an x-ray you are not seeing inside the human body, or even a photograph of the interior anatomy. Some abnormalities in the human anatomy, such as an ordinary broken or displaced bone, are easily seen. Others present enormous difficulty. As to the latter, and this is just such a case, it is not unusual for competent radiologists to reach opposite conclusions reading the same x-rays. The bone fragments would have been minute.