On 28/08/2019 15:03, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Andrew wrote:
Why indeed. But every time I hear someone praising an NHS consultant for
making a diagnosis of an obscure condition, is clearly unaware that it
was the path labs, radiography and other depts who are actually making
that diagnosis (and treatment) possible.

Really? Didn't those patients stop to ponder what all the tests and scans
were for - if it was just down to the skills of a consultant?

Patients are like voters, mostly clueless and think all doctors are
gods, apart from the ones who think they have been treated badly or
don't agree with the diagnosis. Check out the amount of money the
NHS had to spend on negligence claims last year.

However, many of these scans and so on are done by a technician. Still
needs an expert to interpret the results.


The experts are those who specialise in the relevent field, be it
haematology, biochemistry, microbiology, radiology or whatever.

And artificial intelligence has been part of the diagnosis western
medecine for ages, and gets better all the time. Ask Google why they
are so keen on it.

You obviously aren't familiar with the way path labs process hundreds
if not thousands of samples per day. These days 'technicians' are
just machine minders in many cases. Loading up the specimen trays,
replenishing reagents and making sure the results are sent to the
correct requester is about all they do. Only in microbiology and
histopathology is more hands-on activity required.