Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

(RCT) A study in which people are allocated at random (by chance alone) to receive one of several clinical interventions. One of these interventions is the standard of comparison or control. The control may be a standard practice, a placebo (“sugar pill”), or no intervention at all. Someone who takes part in a randomized controlled trial (RCT)…

A table of numbers generated in an unpredictable, haphazard sequence. Tables of random numbers are used to create a random sample. A random number table is therefore also called a random sample table. Random numbers were traditionally selected from a printed table. Today random numbers can be generated by computer.

Determined solely by chance.

In anatomy, a branch, such as a branch of a blood vessel or nerve. For example, the ramus acetabularis arteriae circumflexae femoris medialis is the branch of an artery that goes to the socket of the hip joint. The plural of ramus is rami.

A herpes virus infection of the geniculate nerve ganglion that causes paralysis of the facial muscles on the same side of the face as the infection. The geniculate ganglion is a sensory ganglion associated with the VIIth cranial nerve. The Ramsay Hunt syndrome is usually associated with a rash and blisters. The syndrome is named for the pre-eminent 20th-century American neurologist James Ramsay…

An abnormal lung sound that can be heard through a stethoscope. Rales may be sibilant (whistling), dry (crackling), or wet (sloshy), depending on the amount and density of fluid refluxing back and forth in the air passages.

Elevation of half of the diaphragm, the muscle that separates the chest cavity from the abdomen and that serves as the main muscle of respiration. The elevation of a hemidiaphragm is a significant sign of a problem. That problem may lie below, within or above the diaphragm: An elevated hemidiaphragm may be suspected on the physical examination and confirmed on an X-ray or CT of…

The smaller of the two bones of the forearm, located on the thumb’s side. (The larger bone in the forearm is the ulna.)

The treatment of disease with ionizing radiation. Also called radiation therapy. In radiotherapy, high-energy rays are often used to damage cancer cells and stop them from growing and dividing. A specialist in the radiation treatment of cancer is called a radiation oncologist. Like surgery, radiation therapy is a local treatment; it affects cancer cells only in the treated area. Radiation…

Opaque to one or another form of radiation, such as X-rays. Radiopaque objects block radiation rather than allow it to pass through. Metal, for instance, is radiopaque, so metal objects that a patient may have swallowed are visible on X-rays. Radiopaque dyes are used in radiology to enhance X-ray pictures of internal anatomic structures. The opposite of radiopaque is radiolucent.