In article <1994Apr29.145644.18695 at aragorn.unibe.ch>, ozdoba at unibe.ch
(Christoph Ozdoba) writes:
Why do doctors of other specialties love this images? Is there a
fascination in the image as such, something like "seeing is believing"?
Why is this so? Why is it necessary to have the images before you?
As one of the above-mentioned doctors, I would offer the following:
1) Radiologists do often miss things because they may not know the
clinical findings or diagnostic decision-making that led to ordering a
study. On more than one occasion, I have called the radiologist to say
"Did you notice that cerebellar infarct?" and later received a revised
report.
2) Clinicians do develop an expertise in interpreting images related to
their field. While I am comfortable looking at brain CT/MRI, I would be
lost looking at an abdominal study.
3) We often like to have images for teaching purposes - to go over the
findings with trainees or patients themselves. I store mine in an
electronic medical record system so that they are readily available.
4) Sometimes the information given is not detailed enough for our
purposes. If I am trying to correlate lesions with behavioral problems
and neuropsychological test data, a report of "atrophy", "scattered
lacunar infarcts", or "non-specific periventricular ischemic changes" is
usually not helpful.
5) Would you fault a surgeon for wanting to actually see the pictures
before operating?
I'm interested in your perspective on these issues. Mike Usman, M.D.
