No you are not alone, I'm sure you'll have many supporters on this List.
Radiologists are a service profession (i.e. like laboratory services, they
have no direct patient responsibility, instead they support other
specialists), and I feel I have spent much of my professional life battling
to get radiologists to perform necessary investigations. Just last week a
radiologist refused to do a head scan on one of my registrar's patient as he
felt it wasn't indicated acutely but could wait until the following day. I
won't bore you with the clinical details, but I asked the radiologist to
come and review the patient and document in the notes why he felt it was not
indicated so that the patient could be sent home...the scan was done 30
minutes later. That was a salutary reminder, if one was ever needed, that
radiologists are not clinicians, and that radiologists do not take clinical
responsibility for patients.
Adrian Fogarty
P.S. I have seen the same farcical runaround that you describe so well in
your BMJ letter on many occasions, but things are gradually getting better.
----- Original Message -----
From: "mark nicol" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 2:12 PM
Subject: radiologists compromise timely emergency care
Barriers to effective stroke care out of hours need to be broached-letter in
BMJ 14sept02. Am I alone in thinking that delivery of timely evidence based
care is frequently compromised by radiologists?
markfnicol
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