Step 1 · Contact
What the matter concerns.
The practice, in detail
General practice, justification, diagnostic imaging, and results.
Program 01 · Registered activity
General medical practice
Practising medicine in Belgium requires the diploma, a visa from the federal health authority and registration with the Order of Physicians, alongside the quality of practice legislation covering competence, continuity of care and the patient record. Those registrations appear on the legal page rather than as loose claims here. Where a matter falls outside this practice you will be told and directed to the right care rather than seen anyway.
Step 2 · Consultation
History, examination, discussion.
Step 3 · Information
Purpose, risks, costs, options.
Step 4 · Consent
Freely given, after all of that.
Step 1 · The question
What the examination would answer.
Step 2 · The alternative
Anything without radiation.
Step 3 · The balance
Benefit against detriment.
Step 4 · The decision
Including not doing it.
Program 02 · Before any exposure
Justification
An exposure has to show a sufficient net benefit for the individual, weighed against the harm it may cause, and an alternative achieving the same objective with no radiation or less of it has to be considered. The uncomfortable consequence is that a patient asking for a scan is not a justification for one. Agreeing to an unnecessary examination is not a kindness: it is an exposure with no counterweight, and sometimes a finding that leads nowhere useful.
Program 03 · Lowest useful dose
Diagnostic imaging
Once an examination is justified, the dose is kept as low as reasonably achievable while still answering the clinical question, because a scan too faint to interpret is an exposure for nothing. Tell us before any examination if you are or might be pregnant. And worth separating clearly, since the two are constantly confused: ultrasound uses no ionising radiation at all, so none of this applies to it.
Step 1 · The protocol
Matched to the question.
Step 2 · The checks
Including pregnancy.
Step 3 · The exposure
As low as reasonably achievable.
Step 4 · The image
Adequate to interpret.
Step 1 · The finding
What the examination showed.
Step 2 · The context
What it means for you.
Step 3 · The next step
If any is needed at all.
Step 4 · The record
Kept, and available to you.
Program 04 · In context
Results and records
A result read in isolation misleads more often than it informs, so findings are interpreted against the clinical picture and explained rather than handed over without comment. Patient rights legislation gives you a carefully kept record, a right of access to it and a right to a copy, together with the right to information, to free and informed consent and to complain to a mediation service. Professional secrecy covers everything else.
Need to contact the practice?
Fees are stated in advance on request. In an emergency, contact the emergency services.