GP Stories - Curious Patient

Whenever you go to get a X-ray at the hospital as a patient, you may be able to see the image if you ask the radiographer. However it definitely is not the norm and some radiographers may say it's best to wait for a doctor to review it and tell you the results. That's generally because whilst radiographers can identify some pathology on a scan, their role is not to interpret the scan and they may not be able to tell you what is on the scan. Also patients may see something they may not like on a scan and they will unduly worry themselves with what could be a normal scan.

I was doing a face to face consultation with a 50 year old woman who had seen another doctor with a chronic cough. She had some bloods tests and chest X-ray and wanted to be seen to go over the results. She informed me that she was racked with worry and anxiety since having the X-ray at the hospital. She had the scan and she asked the radiographer what it showed or whether she could look at the scan. The radiographer told her that she needs to wait for the report and that she couldn't look at the scan.

However as she was putting her top back on, the radiographer left the room and she went over to the computer and sneaked a peek at the computer. What she saw, she described as 'filled her with dread' and has left her worried ever since. She said she saw growths in the bottom right of the scan, what looked like under her lungs. She's been having sleepless nights for 1 week since seeing it, and she has been feeling around in her abdomen to see if she can feel anything.

I looked at the report of the scan and her lungs was interpreted as totally normal by the radiologist. I let the patient know but she wasn't reassured by it, she was very worried that the radiologist must have missed the growths as he only commented on the lungs. She was very surprised as the lesions were 'massive'. I had a sneaky suspicion of what she saw though and brought up the above stock chest X-ray.

I asked "did you mean these growths?" indicating the bowel gas under the left diaphragm. She was like "Yes! Those growths! How did the radiologist miss those?!". I smiled at her and explained that this is a normal appearance of bowel on a chest X-ray and that it is simply air she is seeing. I followed it up with more stock photos of bowel gas under the diaphragm. This seemed to alleviate her anxiety somewhat.  

I cautioned her about further sneaking to look at scans as it will cause her more undue worry. I have a feeling though that (like my partner), she hates waiting around not knowing something and will definitely look at the next scan if left unattended. I mean, most of us probably would.