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Essay On Medical Errors In Radiology

628 Words3 Pages

Medical error is one of the most preventable adverse effects of care that is harmful to the patient, with radiology attributing for a significant percentage. Medical errors can happen in a health system when a patient is given inaccurate or complete diagnosis that might lead to injury, disease, infection, and even death of the patient. There are many causes for medical errors such as, miscommunication between the treating provider and the patient, having surgery at the wrong site, wrong interpretation of imaging studies, medication side effects, and nonsomical infections.
One of the most liable specialties to be sued for medical negligence for failure to diagnose is radiology. Radiology is a medical specialty that uses imaging to diagnose and treat diseases seen inside the body. Radiologists are the medical doctors who use imaging from x-rays, MRI, Nuclear medicine, CT scan, and PET scan. Abnormalities and misinterpretation of the of radiologic images claims account for about 40-54 percent of radiology related cases and the three categories of claims include misdiagnoses, complications, and miscellaneous.1 The main factors contributing to diagnostic errors in radiology are errors in identifying and interpreting abnormalities.
These errors can occur …show more content…

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