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After sending an 11 year old off for an x-ray today, views were non comparitive AP, lateral and medial oblique. It came back with a talar dome fracture, and what appears to be an alvulsion fracture on the 5th of both. The mother was a tad concerned over a comment. The radiographer said, "Your clinician doesn't care about the health of your kids. Weight bearing views have so much more radiation exposure than non."

This is a long term client, a kid that has a history of being totally accident prone so has had a few x-rays in his life so mum was a tad concerned. However given what they found she is far less stressed.


Now, can someone talk me through why this comment may have been made?

 

B*llsh*t. There is no difference. It just different positioning. What nonsense.

Please see this thread here http://www.podiatry-arena.com/podiatry-forum/showthread.php?t=27443

This should at least reassure the mother there are fairly negligible risks, from even repeated extremity plain films. Yes, radiation dosage should be kept to a minimum wherever possible, however many subtle lesions are less perceptible with non WB films, and often just necessitate a repeat examination in a WB position anyway...

Make a complaint to the Chief Radiographer and/or Director of Radiology in the Radiology Department, and perhapse even the radiography professional registration board. That is completely unacceptable behaviour, and could have compromised the long term prognosis of the patient had the mother accepted such a outrageous and ridiculous statement.

LL

 

Thanks for that LL. I had already used tool in the thread and was concerned that I was missing something. This unfortunately was a repeat from a non-WB that wasn't matching with symptoms hence the repeat and subsequent finding.

Will work out the correct protocol, as it's the radiology dept in our hospital, could get a tad tricky but will definitely take it further.

 

Cylie:

I would not accept this type of behavior since it the radographer's statement is not only untrue but is a form of libel.

First of all, speak personally to the radiographer to let him/her know what the parent said to get his/her version of the story. Sometimes parents aren't very good at repeating exactly what was said to them by health providers/technicians.

If he/she claims that they did make that statement to the parent, then tell him/her this is unacceptable behavior and you are sending a letter of complaint to not only his/her supervisor but also to the head of the hospital, to the licensing board for radiographers and to any other governmental health authorities that will have influence over this radiographer's career.

Next tell him/her that the only way you will not send these letters is if he personally apologizes to you and tells the parent that he/she was wrong in making these statements, they are innaccurate statements and that you were acting with good medical judgement to order these plain film radiographs of the child.

Believe me, if you do this, comments like this will likely never come again come from this radiographer.