Use of the eyes in x-ray diagnosis.

Abstract

Have you ever missed a perfectly obvious rib fracture? Or overlooked an obvious lung infiltration? If so, you have known real discomfort–the inability to explain such an oversight to your colleagues, for it is far more inexplicable than an error in diagnosing what you actually saw. Let us try to explain why these things happen, and attempt to justify systems which will make these accidents less likely. For we must have systems. Children who take a standard intelligence test (Terman) are given this problem: “You have lost a ball in this round field. Here is the gate. With your pencil show me how you would look for it.” With this test the child of eight years will show some system, while the one of twelve is expected to sketch a regular plan. If we are to develop a routine for scanning films, what approach shall we use? Two systems present themselves: the anatomical and the psychological. In some situations there is no problem. In a retrograde pyelogram one could scarcely do other than look at the kidneys a...