Put a Face to that Medical Test

If you want an expert to pay full attention to your medical tests, get a photo of yourself sent along with them.

A study presented to the Radiology Society of North America last week says that doctors are up to 80 percent more likely to find unexpected abnormalities in patients' medical imaging scans if they are accompanied by a portrait photo.

The study of 15 radiologists' work by Dr Yehonatan Turner, of Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Centre, found that the experts did not spend longer on scans that were accompanied by a patient's photo, but they were more meticulous.

Turner says that his experiment, which covered 267 patients' scans, is based on the idea that seeing another person's face can instil an enhanced sense of moral responsibility for that person.