Medical Imaging Is a Diagnostic Technique - Essay Example

Medical Imaging

Medical imaging is a diagnostic technique used by the doctors that entail the use of various technologies to observe the human body to treat, monitor, and diagnose a particular medical condition. Various people have had imaging done on them. However, some may be misdiagnosed after the use of this technique. Many patients had imaging done and were misdiagnosed either because of the imaging or was proven because of imaging. For instance, a 39-year-old Jackie in the United Kingdom had a failed diagnosis after an error in imaging. The patient had a brain tumor and needed treatment. In essence, diagnosing a brain tumor is a straightforward procedure because it can be detected from the early stages of the disease (Dusenbery, 2018). The image can be obtained when the patient is under fatigue or is experiencing seizures. Hence, during this time, the image can be obtained to show if the tumor is there or not. Many patients have been treated with a brain tumor in the United Kingdom. However, many of these people visit doctors many times before being given the proper treatment they deserve.

The imaging technique needs a significant amount of money. Many patients who visit the doctors and this approach should be used may experience a delay, which may cause an error later when doing it. Therefore, the failure in Jackie's diagnosis was caused by discrimination because she was experiencing unending headaches and needed to be referred to a neurologist because she did not know if this was a result of a brain tumor or not (Dusenbery, 2018). However, she was given analgesia, sleep charts, and antidepressants. Typically, she was not taken seriously, which is a form of bias in medical treatment in the United Kingdom. Therefore, prejudice can lead to medical treatment discrepancy. The brain tumor takes a longer time in women to be show symptoms. Hence, it can take them a long time to seek medical treatment. Misdiagnosis due to failed imaging is frequent in cancer patients, and the delay in diagnosis can lead to deaths for both males and females (Dusenbery, 2018). The case of Jackie's misdiagnosis was due to doctors’ failure because most of the women showing different conditions are told their illness is due to depression, anxiety, or stress.

Jackie felt ill at the age of 16, where she was suffering from fatigue, terrible joint and menstrual pains, fevers, and chronic kidney complications. Jackie visited a pulmonologist, primary care doctor, and urologist, and on performing imaging, all were telling her that she is fine (Dusenbery, 2018). The tests from the medical practitioners did not reveal anything wrong with her. Hence, they made assumptions that she was depressed and gave her antidepressants. The medication did not help, but she had to accept this because they were doctors, and she knew they would never be wrong. Failed diagnosis due to imaging was thus as a result of the doctors’ failure. The physical complaints from women regarding mental conditions have a background in hysteria history. The doctors tend to assume that female disorders are caused by the sensitive nerves present in women that causes psychological problems among them (Dusenbery, 2018). As such, this concept can lead to misdiagnosis of the patients in the name of somatization or hysteria that asserts that most of the mental conditions experienced by women may be due to stress. Therefore, Jackie's doctors thought they had solved her problem but had not. 85% of the patients who have been diagnosed with hysteria in Britain had other prevailing medical conditions like neurological diseases such as epilepsy and brain tumors (Dusenbery, 2018). However, the late discovery does not help them because most of them end up dying because a proper diagnosis was not done at the right time.

The doctors for a long time have been taking women as typical patients having psychogenic symptoms. Thus, doctors may dismiss them by giving them antidepressants in the name of this is in their heads. Misdiagnosis makes a patient vulnerable to other medical conditions. In essence, women experience mood disorders at a higher rate than men, which is also another factor leading to a misdiagnosis from imaging results (Dusenbery, 2018). Thus, Jackie's depression diagnosis was the fault of the doctors to administer treatment based on assumptions and not undertaking the relevant tests to ensure effective treatment is administered. Women are at higher risk for depression, but this does not mean that any mental conditions they experience may be a result of depression. Some diseases can go unrecognized when imaging is done, but the doctor has a judgment already formulated in their head. Anxiety and depression may be symptoms for other prevailing conditions, which doctors fail to recognize (Dusenbery, 2018). Hence, many illnesses may not be treated in women due to this concept. Misdiagnoses may cause depression because a patient will still be feeling ill, yet the doctor prescribes medicine that will not help their medical condition. Failed imaging for women can also be due to assumptions that the abdominal pains that a person is experiencing are due to menstrual pains. An instance was seen in an Italian woman in the United States who had colon cancer but was regularly dismissed, claiming this is menstrual pains.

Jackie had been misdiagnosed for a long time, and it is only one time she got a correct diagnosis. The pelvic pain she was experiencing was due to endometriosis, which needed surgery. However, the doctors kept telling her that she is just hysterical and was drug-seeking (Dusenbery, 2018). Therefore, she became sick for a long time, yet the doctors were still giving her antibiotics. The doctors suspected that she had lupus, which was confirmed after doing a test. The misdiagnosis due to imaging, in this case, is due to doctor's biasness, and this made Jackie land in the ER having excruciating pain. Therefore, it is essential to deal with disrespectful healthcare providers to enhance the effectiveness of healthcare. After ten years of searching for the best diagnosis, Jackie had a correct treatment (Dusenbery, 2018). The case outcome shows that the misdiagnosis was due to poor caring for the patients. From a personal perspective, I agree with this because, for the longest time, medical malpractices have been on the rise, and failure is happening in a recurrent sequence. The problem results from misjudgment, lack of knowledge, and perception failure. In essence, the radiologists should be able to detect the imaging failures so that they can administer the correct medication on the patients. Repeating the same mistake should be combated so that future deaths can be minimized. Thus, the patient was having lupus but was given the wrong diagnosis for ten years, and this was the doctors' fault.