If your clinician requests for a blood, urine, ECG, MRI, or other tests for your child, do not assume it is normal if you do not hear anything from their office.

You should call one to five days, depending on the type of test, after it was done.

Sometimes the office of your clinician gets too busy and will not be able to call you at once. Or at times the result is misplaced or have not been received by the office. On rare occasion, errors in processing the blood or urine specimen happen and the test is not done at all.

So, it is important that you follow up on the result of any test your child's clinician had requested.

Leo Leonidas, MD, FAAP, Bangor, Maine