Los clínicos son de marte y los patólogos de venus. Interpretación clínica de los informes de patología

Abstract

Reports from medical specialties with critical information, such as those from radiology and pathology, must be concise and clear to prevent mistakes in clinical decisions. Since residency, pathologists have to concentrate in offer to clinicians a complete information, but in many cases they ignore if these reports were well understood. Advances in communication have made this gap to get wider and becoming a serious problem. To evaluate communication between clinicians and pathologists, based on histological pathology reports in the University Hospital of Cali, Colombia. We survey open and specific questions about usual reports for each of the must consulting specialties in this Hospital, to be answered by residents and professors. We found 27% of discordance between what do pathologists want to communicate in the report and what do clinicians understand. This difference is higher when the question asked needs interpretation. These discordances could cause medical errors. It is evident that there is a communication problem between clinicians and pathologists. Training and experience diminish this gap, but we should work harder to unify language in order to reduce misinterpretations and medical mistakes. © 2001 Corporación Editora Médica del Valle.