Flight nurse interpretations of chest radiographs

The authors conducted a study to determine whether basic instruction in reading chest radiographs could enable flight nurses to interpret radiographs accurately. Flight nurses were taught 10 trauma-related chest roentgenographic patterns. The chest radiographs of 40 transported trauma patients were chosen randomly over a 14-month period for interpretation by a flight nurse and a referring physician. Flight nurses correctly identified 47 out of 55 patterns (85%). Referring physicians correctly identified 37 out of 55 (67%). Flight nurses also correctly identified 13 patterns that the referring physicians missed. The results indicate that emergency radiologists can advance and improve the radiological aspects of emergent patient care by providing flight nurses with minimal training in interpreting radiographs. When a flight nurse and a physician in an outlying area--where trauma is less commonly encountered--work as a team, more accurate and earlier diagnoses can be made, and therapy can be instituted earlier.