Communicating results of all radiologic examinations directly to patients: has the time come?

摘要

Writing in Radiology 41 years ago, New York radiologist Robert Sherman prophetically observed that radiologists "can do an injustice to the patient by withholding our superior knowledge." Asking rhetorically "Is it not really the patient we are obligated to serve above all others?" Sherman pointed out that it is the "radiologist who is legally and ethically responsible to [patients]...for their diagnosis." Five months later, North Carolina radiologist William Sprunt retorted that a "personal relationship between a patient and his doctor...cannot be satisfactorily developed hi diagnostic radiology," and that radiologists "are not required to listen to prolonged descriptions of vague symptoms and systems reviews nor to make complete physical examinations. Anyone who wants to do these things should be something other than a radiologist."