Some Practical Advice, or, How to Do Better than We Did

Abstract

At the end of this ultrasound study of digestive diseases I would like to offer some advice. As is the case with any method, ultrasonography can be in error. Not only does it not always avoid diagnostic errors, it may even provoke them. These errors are usually the result of faults in the interpretation of the images, not of the images themselves. Often they occur when a diagnosis is made too rapidly without sufficient reasoning and is made from the first evidence before the examiner has had the time to think about and assemble all of the information that is available from several sections. Ultrasonography is above all a sequential method; a fragmentary examination runs the risk of sinning by omission.