The dictated report and the radiologist's ethos. An inextricable relationship: pitfalls to avoid.

Radiologists' reputation as expert image interpreters are in large measured defined by the content of their written reports. Habitually use of terms that reveal a lack of decisiveness will serve to diminish their esteem in the minds of their referrers. Recurrent resort expression to such as questionable, suspicious, cannot rule out, and clinical correlation requested when frequently deployed are examples of phrases that can have a negative effect on the radiologist's ethos.