0.137 Images of memorable cases: epilogue

In attempting to provide a memorable conclusion, we came across the following thought-provoking quotation:

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. --Abraham Maslow

In that light, we hope that this book has helped you find diagnostic tools that you didn’t know you had.If it didn’t . . .

we are heart-broken—like the “broken heart” in the image above.

That heart, by the way, belonged to a 69-year-old woman who had undergone a coronary artery bypass procedure on Valentine’s Day.Postoperatively, the portable chest radiograph shown above disclosed a striking radiolucent line bisecting the patient’s heart. But on a follow-up radiographmade several hours later, the line had disappeared, proving that it was an artifact and not the result of the surgeon’s knife (or Cupid’s arrow). The causeof the artifact remains a mystery.

That said, we hope you have enjoyed this journey as much as we have enjoyed charting it.