“There’s a ghost in the library”
Documentation in medicine has transformed in the last 10 years: notes no longer scatter across the floor to reveal hurriedly scribbled ward rounds without signature or ownership. In the digital era, we can proudly say that ‘if it wasn’t written down it didn’t happen’. By extension, in the modern world of acute echocardiography, if it wasn’t ‘uploaded and reported’, it didn’t happen. These ‘ghost studies’ roam hospital corridors ready to interfere with patient care in maverick ways. All we are left with clinically is a rumour that a study possibly happened. There should be zero ‘ghost studies’ in our library. But, evidently, the ghosts are yet to be busted.
