General Medical Services
- GP Consultations
- Investigations including blood test, xrays and scans
- Prescriptions
- Referrals to hospital consultants privately
- Travel advice and vaccinations
- Occupational health investigations and assessment
Investigations Your Doctor Can Order
Your doctor can order a number of investigations:
MRI Scan
Introduction
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan uses a strong magnetic field and radio waves to create images through a scanner to a computer.
It is radiation free and so harmless so far you do not have a metal in your body like a pace maker.
MRI scan is commonly used to investigate the brain, (brain tumour) spinal cord, (severe low back pain) heart, blood vessels and internal organs like lungs and liver. Also sports injury like torn knee cartilage
MRI scan can also be used to examine the breast.
Procedure
You will be placed in a motorized bed. A receiving magnet is placed around the part to be examined and then you are moved into the tunnel of scanner which is a large round magnet and inside it a radio frequency source. You will need to keep still and the procedure can take 15 to 90 minutes.
The scanner is operated from an adjacent room to protect the computer controlling the scanner from the magnetic field.
How it works
You lie inside a scanner surrounded by a large powerful magnet. A receiving magnet is placed around the part of the body to be investigated. The body is made up of small atoms. The large magnet lines them up while short pulsed from the radio waves knocks them out of alignment. As they realigns, the atoms emit tiny signals that are picked up by the receiving magnet, scanner and passed to the computer that builds up an image.
CT Scanning
Introduction
Computerized Tomography (CT) scanning uses x-ray with a computer. It uses radiation. A series of x-rays are passed through the body at different angles to produce a detail cross sectional images of the body called slices. There is an x-ray source and xray detector. The x-ray detector picks up the radiation after passing through the body and this is sent to a computer which builds up the image.
USE
To investigate head, trunk, bones and joints.
- CT Head, Stroke, Brain tumour
- CT Chest, Lung Cancer
- CT Abdomen, Tumours, Internal bleeding, Organ disorders
RISK
CT scanning uses radiation, it is generally quite low, but never the less might be significant.