What is a Sleep Doctor?

In the US the RSPGTs do learn to do and do do the scoring, but then the sleep doctor is also supposed to go over the PSG epoch by epoch and to confer w/the RPSGT.

Ahhhh ok thanks Slinky I can sleep in peace now
I DO need a new night-job btw

/end hijack

echo wrote:What's the deal? In the U.S., don't the DOCTORS do the "scoring" ? Or is it common that a Sleep Tech (whatever that means) would do the scoring??

Sorry if I'm stepping on any Tech's toes here, maybe I am misinformed of the extent of their training and capabilities. I was just a bit alarmed at this!

I think you have it just about right, echo. The sleep techs score the data. The sleep docs sign off as having read the interpretation and agreeing with it. I wasn't joking when I made the comment in another thread that I suspect some sleep docs come in at 10 in the morning, take a sip of coffee, read an interpretation, sign it. Take another sip of coffee, read the next interpretation and sign it. This is not what is supposed to happen, but it is a system that would be easy to abuse: your kid is at soccer practice, and it's your turn to pick her up. Scrawl your signature on the last three quickly and go pick up your daughter. It's not supposed to happen that way. The doc is supposed to at least cursorily scroll through your data, right? I suspect many do not. They depend on the techs to be right. Unfortunately, many of the techs get better at scoring the data than the docs after a while, but they get paid less because they don't have a degree that says 'MD'. I suspect some docs have not scored data in so long that they would be hard pressed to simply jump in and score quickly and efficiently if their lead tech were to call in sick. I further suspect that many of them would probably miss things more experienced techs don't. I'm not saying all techs are geniuses. Surely there are plenty of greener techs that misscore many people before they get a good handle on it. The couple hundred dollars for a five-minute cursory glance at a scored report by the doctor means many hours put in by techs. It's not a whole lot different from the radiology scene in the US. The radiology tech reads the images, write the interpretation and the doc signs it after glance through some portion of the images viewed. It is highly unlikely they give the images a thorough review.

It's definitely not a perfect system. Others - please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the impression I get from our system of medicine. It's pure doc-in-a-box, and it's dangerous. Personally, I don't think an MD should be allowed to sign off on a medical diagnosis without first having met the patient to get a fuller understanding of their condition or without having fully reviewed all the data in files associated with the opinion they seem to so glibly sign.

Mine is the neurologist who treated me when I went blinde in the right eye. It was the hospital stay that alerted them to my sleep apnea. He has a specialty in sleep disorders.

ETA: My regular family doctor will ask how my therapy is going and sometimes make suggestions, but she is not the one I would go to for any serious issues, because she doesn't have the experience that my neurologist has.

Echo,
In both of my sleep studies, the tech did no analysis. In fact, he was specifically forbidden from discussing results with me during the night or in the morning. Both analysis reports were signed by MD's.

I imagine there could be sleep labs which ask the tech to do the analysis and the doc rubber stamps it. I witnessed that recently when I had an "Actiwatch" study done.

Hope that helps. Good luck with your search. I hope you help advance the state of this fledgling industry.

Though initially many sleep specialists started as Pulmonologists, I tend to now see more neurologists who are specializing in sleep medicine. Some teaching hospitals have actually established programs to help doctors specialize in sleep medicine.