Pain Procedures in Cath Lab

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masterPain

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A local hospital is pushing some pain physicians to performing procedures in the cath lab. Does anyone have experience? If so, what is your experience? Is there increased radiation exposure?
 
I do half day a month at nearby hospital in cath lab.
The radiation dose is much higher (even when on lowest setting)
Most likely will be more inefficient than you’re used to with c arm based work
 
A local hospital is pushing some pain physicians to performing procedures in the cath lab. Does anyone have experience? If so, what is your experience? Is there increased radiation exposure?
I was considering doing this. The issue is if a cath comes in, who gets rescheduled?

I don't see any extra risk of radiation unless they're using a weird c arm setup.
 

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They don’t typically use c arms in cath labs
Pain procedure will get rescheduled, not a huge problem for me since it’s a small hospital
 
I do half day a month at nearby hospital in cath lab.
The radiation dose is much higher (even when on lowest setting)
Most likely will be more inefficient than you’re used to with c arm based work

They’re telling me radiation dose is the same as regular c arm. This came as a surprise to me as I always heard it was substantially higher.
 
I was considering doing this. The issue is if a cath comes in, who gets rescheduled?

I don't see any extra risk of radiation unless they're using a weird c arm setup.
There’s no cardiac team utilizing but im sure if it happened they’d send rest of cases to the OR
 
A local hospital is pushing some pain physicians to performing procedures in the cath lab. Does anyone have experience? If so, what is your experience? Is there increased radiation exposure?
I did procedures in a Cath lab for about a year. Loved the facilities much better than what I was used to. The flouro machine had a very large receiver. Key, as always, is to have a tech who is competent. No idea about radiation, least of my worries at the time.
 
way back before i went to ASC, we tried setting up procedures as office based injections in the cath lab.

the charge nurse placed a formal denial stating that my interventional spine procedures were too dangerous to be done in the cath lab...

i did use the inpatient cath lab for stellates on patients with intractable V tach. nice images...
 
If someone has some sources on difference in radiation doses it would be greatly appreciated!
 
I did a half year using cath lab.
It was more radiation, the table sucked, and the machine was 4-5x larger than a C-arm.
It was terrible.
My exact thoughts
 
I have some procedures in 3 different cath labs. No issues with imaging, beautiful images.
 
IMG_0178.jpeg
 
I have some procedures in 3 different cath labs. No issues with imaging, beautiful images.
I love the images. Can see every detail.
Even on low setting, radiation is higher.
No problems, but they’re not able to do and replicate same extent of my c arm as low dose and pulsed
 
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