The Rookie Radiology Mistake
They always tell you the first thing you should always do when looking at an imaging study is verify the patient’s name and date of study.
Today I got nice and burned by it, but luckily the attending caught it. Nothing deathly serious, just a stupid, stupid mistake, which I will not do again.
As I’ve always said, I’d much rather make stupid mistakes as a med student than as a doctor.
Sometimes it is helpful to look at the image for hints of the patient’s identity too.
I remember staring for several minutes at a CXR in emerg once, baffled that this seemingly-generally-healthy 30 yo female had a big honkin’ pacemaker in her chest. She hadn’t bothered to mention it to me!
I was also wondering why it was taking so long for the CXR of another patient, a relatively unhealthy lady in her 70′s, to be put on the PACS.
It took my subconscious more time than I’d care to admit to to put these (at the time) seemingly unrelated circumstances together. I was pretty pleased with myself when I did, though.
My little moment of triumph doesn’t do much to make you feel any better, but I guess the point is that with films going past so many sets of clever eyes, there will be some times where you’re the star and other times when you’re the shyts.
Next time you’ll shine!