When the doctor says "Huh...."

It's common knowledge that when a doctor looks at your results and then says "Hmmm"... you're in big trouble. I guess there's some truth to this, but I realized something today while reviewing radiographs: it's not necessarily as bad as it sounds. It's not "hmmm, we knew you had a problem but we weren't expecting this" or "hmmm, I don't know how to interpret this strange result..." It's more likely that the doctor has looked at 60 test results today, and has been straining at all of them to find the slightest abnormality. The "huh!" is just surprise at actually having something there to look at.

I'd still rather have the doctor squinting quizzically at my radiographs without finding anything to comment on, of course. From the outside, I always felt like "normal" was something you looked at and confirmed. In fact, in many cases, "normal" just means "well, I don't see anything yet, but maybe if I kept looking..."