The Internal Medicine service is run by Samuel Jakovljevic.
A combination of experience and advanced imaging equipment allows the Dick White Referrals team to offer a range of medical imaging and radiological procedures that provide invaluable diagnostic tools for the clinics staff. This enables them to ensure that referring veterinarians are offered exceptional clinical services and that patients are given the most effective care and treatment. The full range of imaging services available at present are described below.
Dick White Referrals has recently acquired a state-of-the-art Hitachi Open Magnetic Resonance Scanner that has been located in an attractively designed and purpose-built barn conversion that includes en-suite anaesthetic facilities.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a safe and effective method of producing high quality images that can provide crucial information about a wide range of diseases. Unlike radiography, MRI does not use ionizing radiation but it is a diagnostic technique in which a powerful magnetic field forces the magnetisation of hydrogen atoms in a body to align. Radio waves are used to alter the orientation of this magnetisation, causing the hydrogen atoms to emit a signal that is transmitted to an antenna and fed to a computer. The radio-signal can be manipulated by additional magnetic fields in order to obtain sufficient information to reconstruct images of the body in many different planes.
MRI scans are very useful in the diagnosis of many conditions, including neurological diseases, orthopaedic disorders, and the staging of cancer, thereby saving further invasive diagnostic procedures in a number of cases.
ULTRASOUND
Ultrasound is a safe and painless diagnostic procedure whereby high-frequency sound waves, generated by a transducer within a small probe, are sent within the body. The sound waves are reflected by internal organs and by various tissue interfaces, this resulting in “echoes” that are captured by the probe and manipulated by the machine’s computer. Images of body sections are obtained by highly trained personnel and displayed on a monitor in real-time. There is no radiation exposure associated with ultrasound.
Ultrasound has a wide range of applications: it is used to visualise muscles, tendons, eyes, blood vessels and many internal abdominal or thoracic organs. It is also used to assess organ size and structure, as well as many lesions. One example of its most valuable uses is to guide small needles to specific targets in the body in order to obtain tissue samples that often lead to conclusive evidence of a disease. Furthermore, when complemented by a special Doppler technique, ultrasound can also capture images and quantitative information of blood flow through the heart or vessels.
DIAGNOSTIC RADIOGRAPHY
In conventional radiography, x-rays are used to view parts of the body. Since x-rays are attenuated differently as they travel through body tissues of different densities, x-rays can be used to reveal the internal structure of the body on photographic film (the radiograph).
With “Fluoroscopy”, another diagnostic imaging procedure available at the clinic, x-rays are used to obtain moving images of internal organs on a television monitor rather than “static” images on radiographs.
Furthermore, in specific circumstances, contrast substances can be administered to patients in order to provide a better way of visualising internal organs or assessing organ function.
It should be noted that in all the radiological procedures deployed by Dick White Referrals, only the lowest possible doses of radiation are used by our experienced and specialised staff, thereby ensuring that x-rays are used as safely and effectively as possible at all times.
