Explaining medical instruments.

[Agentt]

So, I am having trouble writing this one scene.

Basically, assume you don't know the word Xray or MRI.
How would you describe an X ray or MRI machine then?

Like, it is a white big machine, but I want to give it an omnious aura; but it is hard to do so when I can't really describe how it looks other than a device made of steel.

 

[SailusGebel]

 

[NotaNuffian]

I thought MRI looks like a gaping mouth where the sacrif- I mean patients are forced to be strapped onto a bed and slowly getting shoved into said mouth?

As for X-Ray machine, I only used it for chest examination while my mom used it during her dental, it looks like a white, cold piece of metal board that I am forced to stick myself onto.

Is it uncomfortable? Yes. Ominous? No.

 

[K5Rakitan]

"Let us make their insides, outsides."
- Brightwing

 

[Agentt]

Ominous? No.

That's the thing, I wanna make it omnious, like a dentist chair. Focusing on alien like lights and the whirring sound and just the fear of unknown.

 

[NotaNuffian]

That's the thing, I wanna make it omnious, like a dentist chair. Focusing on alien like lights and the whirring sound and just the fear of unknown.

Does X-Ray whirl? IIRC it doesn't.

If you want, you can capitalize on what I stated earlier; it feels cold, you are forced to stick yourself onto the "wall" until they told you to stop. You don't know when the stop will come. It feels cold.

As for MRI, the damn thing is a giant magnet, I recalled someone died from the thing picking up metal objects and get hurled onto said person.

Also, if you have piercings, get ready for a rough removal.

 

[Agentt]

Does X-Ray whirl? IIRC it doesn't.

As for MRI, the damn thing is a giant magnet, I recalled someone died from the thing picking up metal objects and get hurled onto said person.

Also, if you have piercings, get ready for a rough removal.

MRI is indeed a huge magnet, however rather than snatching off grandma's metal hip, it heats it tremendously to the point your insides burn.

This is because a magnet can only pull something if you pull it from one direction. Since MRI produces magnetism from all directions, it's like a blackhole where anything weak will just explode and anything strong will heat up due to the stress.

Does X-Ray whirl? IIRC it doesn't.

And no...but that's nothing some creative licence can't fix.

 

[NotaNuffian]

MRI is indeed a huge magnet, however rather than snatching off grandma's metal hip, it heats it tremendously to the point your insides burn.

This is because a magnet can only pull something if you pull it from one direction. Since MRI produces magnetism from all directions, it's like a blackhole where anything weak will just explode and anything strong will heat up due to the stress.

And no...but that's nothing some creative licence can't fix.

How to Stay Safe When Getting an MRI

Find out how everything from jewelry to dental fillings and body piercings affect the MRI test.

www.yalemedicine.org

Burning metal joints ain't that much an issue though, so I did not bring out the heating element.

But apparently, tattoos might burn. Human combustion fear then?

Also, cock rings, nipple and clit piercings will hurt. Ouch.

https://med.stanford.edu/bmrgroup/Research/mri-near-metal.html
Well, does X-Ray affect pacemakers? Probably not.

 

[Varstark]

What it feels like when you have to go to the hospital for even so much as a scan:

You sometimes need a contrasting agent injected before getting an MRI or CAT, so there's that for more terrors.

Edit: Also, why is this in Artist's General?

 

[Silbern]

It's a gigantic radiation-deflecting cylinder resembling a donut with a hole cut in the middle of its thick, round shape. The hole seems to be made of a pearly material that is not quite transparent or translucent, depending on the angle it is viewed from, as though the machine is being lit from below by a thin flame.

 

[Agentt]

Artist's General?

...meant to click on author's general!

 

[LORD_SHAXX]

My time to shine. I've been waiting for this.
An MRI machine uses magnets to temperoraily realign water molecules in your body. Radio waves are then produced which produce a 3d image that allow us to identify foreign bodies such as tumours in your body.

XRAY is different xray fires radiation through your body to an XRAY reciever. Different things in your body absorb radiantion dfferently so your bones absorb more than let's say your skin where it might just pass through with little resistance. This allows for an image to be made that will shows us where bones are or if any foreign bodies are left.

Source: me I work as a student ODP I live and breathe hospital equipment.
Fun fact about MRI machines is that the magnetic force is so strong that it can rip out things like earrings from your body

 

[Agentt]

My time to shine. I've been waiting for this.
An MRI machine uses magnets to temperoraily realign water molecules in your body. Radio waves are then produced which produce a 3d image that allow us to identify foreign bodies such as tumours in your body.

XRAY is different xray fires radiation through your body to an XRAY reciever. Different things in your body absorb radiantion dfferently so your bones absorb more than let's say your skin where it might just pass through with little resistance. This allows for an image to be made that will shows us where bones are or if any foreign bodies are left.

Source: me I work as a student ODP I live and breathe hospital equipment.
Fun fact about MRI machines is that the magnetic force is so strong that it can rip out things like earrings from your body

As a med student, while I appreciate the facts, I don't think I can make a character which doesn't know what an MRI machine is but still knows it's function and working...

Plus, this is supposed to be omnious!

 

[DarkeReises]

@Agentt let's take a moment and sidetrack

when the fuck did you add this to your signature

On another note, I think we need more context for in what scenario you are trying to describe these machines. As a character with modern knowledge but doesn't know all the nitty gritty details about how stuff works trying to explain to some fantasy schmucks? Or entering an abandoned modern hospital/healthcare center in a long-term post-apocalyptic scenario where such knowledge is lost, and encountering these seemingly ominous machines for the first time? Or some other scenario? I think it changes greatly how you'd describe it, whether it be trying to explain the key functions of the machine or focus on the ominousness in a horror/mystery kinda way

 

[Redemit]

Who's describing it?

 

[TotallyHuman]

I mean, being stripped naked, forced to hold a weird metal jacket and being forbidden to breathe all the while being shot with highly dangerous and poisonous radiation is, in fact, very ominous.
As for MRI, I have never tried it, but solemnity of the procedure itself - an otherwise quiet with nobody else around and weird whirring noises, the anticipation of a potentionally terminal result - that is not exactly a relaxing experience either

 

[Agentt]

Who's describing it?

A guy who doesn't know what an MRI machine is of course.

@Agentt let's take a moment and sidetrack
View attachment 15047
when the fuck did you add this to your signature

When we kissed of course.

On another note, I think we need more context for in what scenario you are trying to describe these machines. As a character with modern knowledge but doesn't know all the nitty gritty details about how stuff works trying to explain to some fantasy schmucks? Or entering an abandoned modern hospital/healthcare center in a long-term post-apocalyptic scenario where such knowledge is lost, and encountering these seemingly ominous machines for the first time? Or some other scenario? I think it changes greatly how you'd describe it, whether it be trying to explain the key functions of the machine or focus on the ominousness in a horror/mystery kinda way

It is a modern man but not particularly of medicinal field. Basically he isn't the sort to be able to identify if a machine is MRI or something, but he could figure out its something a hospital would have.

 

[Jemini]

This is actually an interesting writing exercise I learned once, although the version I learned was with people. Look at a person, or a picture of a person, and try to describe them in writing.

So, I guess I would advise doing the same with objects from the perspective of someone who doesn't know what it is. Like, a pencil. A small painted stick that is sharpened on one end. The sharp end seems to have a black tip for some reason, and there's a strangely soft springy... something on the back side of the stick fastened in place with some kind of thin metal.

 

[LORD_SHAXX]

As a med student, while I appreciate the facts, I don't think I can make a character which doesn't know what an MRI machine is but still knows it's function and working...

Plus, this is supposed to be omnious!

Then i would go for the child explanation "it's a big machine that allows you to see inside people"

 

[JayDirex]

are you kidding with this back and forth? Bruv, just look at this dystopian machine and start writing. the first problem everyone goes through when put through this machine is CLAUSTROPHOBIA, isolation, and jut how mortally helpless they feel as a human.

So write a description based on what you see and what every human says about these things:

1. Helplessness, feeling their mortality
2. Claustrophobia in the isolation.