After working closely with medical teams, I am able to see a few things on imaging. Although, my theory is that if I can see a problem looking at imaging, the patient is in really bad shape.
It's useful for anticipating questions and recommendations. For example, a pronounced mid-line shift on a CT head is pretty easy to see after a few times. If I see that, I can anticipate that we may move the discussion on rounds towards withdrawal of care, reducing sedation to do a last neuro assessment, etc. However, I will never say anything before a physician makes an interpretation. If I think there's a problem based on imaging, I usually hit up the resident and ask them if they were able to interpret today's results yet and if there was anything significant. Sometimes I'm able to mention the radiologist's interpretation, but I find they are usually un-usefully vague: "infiltrates that may be pneumonia vs. fluid overload vs. atelectasis vs. [insert 5 other differentials here].
