How useful are they really?
For such a useless procedure, there is an unreasonable amount of emphasis placed on its performance by our consultants, probably a vestigial remnant from the olden days when CT scans, ultrasounds, and antibiotics were not as powerful or widely available.
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- Pay for performance follies
- Funyuns and pelvic fractures
- "One easy way to get compliance is to see only compliant patients"
- $21.5 million for missed pneumonia
- Breast self-exams
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It’s getting to where no one wants to actually look at and touch a patient. Now we have a whining ER doc who dosn’t want to do his job. When the patient points to where she perceives the problem to be, at least do her the courtesey of looking there.
Yeah, why should we do a 2 minute pelvic examination when we can spend 20 minutes and $1500 on a CT scan to get the same information?
You anons obviously didn’t read the post, or you have zero medical knowledge, or both.
The ER disposition of a vaginal bleeder is typically unaffected by how much bleeding is present; it essentially depends upon the vital signs and lab tests.
The ER disposition of a pelvic pain patient is unaffected by how tender she is, by the cervical cultures that take days before results are completed, or whether I feel a lump or not…it’s based upon the results of the vital signs, lab tests and imaging studies.
We always do the pelvic examination, but it’s actually the least important part of the visit.
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