Accuracy of diagnostic procedures: has it improved over the past five decades?

摘要

So wrote L. Henry Garland in his classic pioneering article on diagnostic errors published in the American Journal of Roentgenology. Garland went on to relate that when one of his friends, a well-known professor of radiology, learned that Garland's research disclosed that radiologists missed about one third of roentgenologically positive findings, the friend expressed the hope that Garland would discontinue his "investigations in this field because they were so morale-disturbing. When other radiologists were confronted with this data, continued Garland, their usual reaction was "Well, in my everyday work this does not apply; I would do better than those busy investigators" .