That was a question asked at a Southern District Health Board committee yesterday as the board grapples with big waiting times at Dunedin Hospital for routine MRI and CT scans.
Chief medical officer Dr David Tulloch told the hospital advisory committee doctors risked growing "lazy" and depending on medical imaging scans, rather than using clinical instinct.
It was a problem around the world, particularly in the United States, where scans were often ordered for medico-legal rather than clinical reasons, he said.
However, board member Richard Thomson said the board must not blame its own lack of providing scans on the doctors for over-ordering them.
Such procedures were mainstream diagnostic tools in the developed world, he said.
He believed that given the choice, patients preferred a scan to clinical intuition.
Member Dr Branko Sijnja, a GP, cautioned that medical literature was emerging showing strong evidence the "phenomenal" radiation from CT scans could cause cancer.
"That really does worry me," he said.
Dr Sijnja said there was a risk GPs ordered scans because they were frightened not to.
He asked whether Oamaru's CT scanner was being used to assist the backlog at Dunedin Hospital.
In response, patient services executive director Lexie O'Shea said it was, but the Dunedin and Invercargill scanners had a higher specification, which affected which patients could be sent north.
Committee chairman Paul Menzies asked why the district-wide review of radiology services signalled earlier this year had not started.
Mrs O'Shea said the board had been unable to recruit a programme manager, while DHB restructuring under way was playing a part in the holdup.
Patients at Dunedin Hospital are waiting 28 weeks for routine MRI scans, and 20 weeks for routine CT scans. The target times are 16 and 12 weeks respectively.
