Not actually that rare to see. Reabsorption of bone is fairly common place in non unionized fractures that don’t end up getting good blood flow. Osteoclasts will breakdown the bone fragments that don’t unionize, especially if the bone isn’t really responsible for weight bearing.
The only thing thats fake about this is a group of doctors being mystified by any of it.
My granma had a spinal disc missing entirely. It was just gone. Must’ve broken it at some point and didn’t realize. She was mostly bedridden and moved very slowly with a walker, needed a lot of support. May she rest in peace (death unrelated to missing disc)
Does this bone not assist with weight bearing?
Not really during normal ambulation, it mainly aids in stability and in certain range of motions in the ankle. Even less so in post traumatic reconstructions like in this particular image.
The only thing thats fake about this is a group of doctors being mystified by any of it.
Sounds more like a teaching opportunity, which was interpreted as an ‘ah, they have no idea what is going on’ moment.
Maybe? But again, reabsorption is so commonplace that it’s not particularly a significant teaching opportunity. I
f we’re assuming that what this person claimed is true, the only real educational thing about this is how important it is to stick to the prescribed follow up care. This more than likely would have been caught during follow up imaging post reconstruction.
Wouldn’t the patient miss the support that bone provided?!
Nah, the fibula doesn’t really bear much weight, it mainly helps with ankle stability and helps with ankle rotation. Things that probably aren’t really a factor after the reconstruction that this patient acquired after their accident.
Reabsorption of bone is fairly common place in non unionized fractures that don’t end up getting good blood flow. Osteoclasts will breakdown the bone fragments that don’t unionize
This is why it’s so important to talk to your coworkers and get organized, if those bones were unionized this never would’ve happened.
Bernie your bones, bro.
Could also be bone eating bacteria.
Prob not, osteomyelitis is pretty nasty and would have been cause for revisional intervention. The limb would have been visibly swollen and the post op wounds prob would have been weeping a bunch of nasty pus.
Or bone eating surgeons
possibly bone-eating sturgeons
Or, when his leg was being put back together they just straight up forgot to put it in during surgery.
Haha, nah. You typically don’t excise bone fragments when you plan on putting them back together. That would force you to unnecessarily remove a bunch of soft tissue that surrounds/attaches to the bone.
Yeah, I was thinking more like it was shattered and they forgot to put in the titanium rod replacement.
Really unlikely… It would be hard to miss a shattered tibia if you are already placing hardware in the fibula. Orthopedic surgery isn’t really a gentle process, you are usually really moving the limb around a lot and limbs get really floppy when you have unsupportive fractures.
Plus, all hardware is tagged and tracked before, throughout, and after the operation. Mistakes happen, but it usually involves accidentally leaving a foreign body, and usually involves supplies that aren’t specific to the individual surgery like gauze, sponges, or clamps.
Btw, couldn’t doctors just use git for your medicinal record? Every change is logged and attributed and all.
Git blame whoever put in those screws
nooo, that would be too easy. instead we should put tens of millions of taxpayers dollars into a closed source solution that hospitals have to pay thousands of dollars per month to use. (and it has like 12 critical vulnurabilities and the company refuses to fix them)
God dang aliens takin our bones I tell you what
I tell you what is always read as hwat.
Unless it’s Boomhauer saying it. Then it’s “Itelyawat”
My only regret
Is that I have
Boneitis
