Your article Dec. 2 (VIHA leads radiology peer review) needs some reinforcement by example in order to make it clear that indeed, VIHA needs to begin an imaging peer review.
In September I was diagnosed with renal failure and my new doctor (my old family physician up and left) immediately sent me for a CT scan to the Royal Jubilee Hospital on Oct. 3. A week later, I was told that among other things, I had a grossly enlarged prostate gland.
Not so: six years ago, in the very same hospital my prostate gland was completely removed.
My physician sent me for another CT scan on Oct. 23. Instead of getting a CT scan, the attending technician told me that an MRI scan had been ordered by my doctor, which was not the case.
Through the first part of November I have checked with my physician regarding the results of this MRI test, which I am told is a rather expensive procedure. I stopped checking Nov. 18 and my doctor assured me that he had called the hospital on several occasions. There is no sign of the whereabouts of this test result.
Fortunately my doctor took me off the drugs I had been taking to control hypertension, a combination which had caused the renal problem.
Richard F. Reiter
Victoria