ACR Member’s Complaint Leads to Action Against Visiting Ultrasound Firm
Last summer, a California firm set up shop in a Great Falls, Mont., hotel room and offered ultrasound body scans that it claimed "could detect future health problems ranging from strokes to prostate cancer." Now, thanks in large part to efforts by ACR member Leslie A. Russell, M.D., the state's Board of Medical Examiners has threatened legal action against the firm if it returns and performs scans that are reviewed by doctors who aren't licensed to practice in Montana.
"One woman was told she had a normal uterus and ovaries, although they had been removed years ago," Russell said in a story in the March 12 edition of The Great Falls Tribune. "Another was told she had a mass on her kidney, and she had none."
Among the other mistakes cited by Russell: one patient's report had the wrong name on it and another report was dated a full month before the patient was actually screened. Russell cited the instances in a complaint she filed with state officials after several of the patients who had been scanned by Ultra Life Inc. visited her for further evaluation.
"This is wrong. It's unethical," Russell charged in the article. "A false diagnosis puts people through unnecessary anxiety about tumors that might not be there. On the other hand, a false clean bill of health can give people a false sense of security about their health."
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