Yea, even the most basis research would tell you that you can't have an MRI with anything magnetic in your body. A microwave from an inch away has about a 1 Gauss magnetic field, where his implant "outright buzzed". And an MRI field is multiple Tesla, i.e., larger by 4 orders of magnitude.

> My earlier internet research suggested you could secure it with tape during a scan, but this confidence was apparently misplaced.

I'd hate to know what else he has confidence in.

The author is a woman.

The colleague with the MRI scan is a man.

But isn't it altogether nicer when comments focus on the interesting parts rather than quibbling over the trivial?

Do they run patients through a metal detector before putting them in an MRI?

The hospital/clinic will ask a series of questions that are risk factors for having metal in your body. Here is a typical form (no association) [pdf]: http://radiology.ucla.edu/workfiles/referralforms/MRI-safety...

If the patient isn't able to answer or is unsure it gets a little complicated based on the risk factors, how soon the image is needed, etc.. Sometimes screening imaging of the orbits (eyes) is done if there is a history of metal working or a CT head/orbits (bullet fragments in brain = no bueno), chest X-ray if you can't get documentation on a pacemaker, and so on.

That seems a lot less efficient than a metal detector. Perhaps they just aren't sensitive enough?

While I don't know enough about metal detectors to know how sensitive they are, I suspect someone has looked into it because there would be a lot of money to be made/saved if you could, for example, use a detector to confidently rule out metal fragments in the eyes. Bear in mind these fragments are <1 mm, and if you are wrong and the powerful magnet moves it even a couple mm you could blind a person or worse!

Metal detectors don't (typically) detect body jewelery so I don't think they are very useful in a clinical setting since they'd have to detect that sort of thing.

Source: I have a bunch of body jewelery and been through a bunch of metal detectors and never set any off.

Well yes the ones used in security checkpoints are probably only set to detect big pieces of metal like guns and knives. It's a pain if they go off every time someone walks through with an earring or a metal button or zipper.

But people do use metal detectors to reliably find bottle caps, jewelry, coins, etc, under several inches of sand and soil.

I had to get an MRI for my knee (old injury) and all they did was ask me if I had any medical implants or sustained any injuries where I might have had metal enter my body.