Retroperitoneal Diagram - FA 2010 Page 302

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Did anyone else notice it appears that the diagram is messed up. With the spine indicated the Left side must be on the left in these axial cuts, but if you look the left should have the descending colon but it is pictured on the right?

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descending_colon

I don't get it. Why is the left the left and not the right as in any other axial slice?
 
I'm with MediumDef here, I have no clue what you're talking about. There's one spinous process in the picture and it looks pretty unambiguous (how do you orient yourself with it other than to say "yup, that's the midline alright"?)
 
I was orienting myself based on the spinous process of the vertebra and this diagram agrees with it unless I'm mixing something up

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Gray1097.png


for axial cut diagrams.. i have found this helpful:

assume the patient is lying down, face up on a table in front of u. Assume ur looking at your patient from his soles of his feet .... upwards towards his head. Now try to find his liver... his liver should be on the left side of ur view, if a picture was taken. (this corresponds also with the picture on 303, liver on left side)

using this same idea, so now try to locate the descending colon. U should picture it on the right side of the picture.

i dont know how reliable that picture is, from what u quoted.. but i have always used that in school.. and it applies almost every time... except for that one picture u posted? lol.. oh well. Atleast thats what i think.

hope that helped.
 
Both images look fine, just different orientations. As healingpower said, looking from the feet up. Which is what the FA diagram shows, as with CT. The wikipedia one, while correct, is from the vantage of looking down (if you took that image, and imagine looking from below it, you'd get what you see in FA).
 
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