Having worked in laboratories all my life I can tell you calibration is a big issue. Thermometers for people only really need to accurate over fairly narrow range. Something like 90 to 110 F should cover most situations that a doctor would expect to see in practice. They could still be wildly innaccurate outside that range and be useful.
Another big issue is using instrumentation properly. Waving that IR thermometer around and getting a proper and accurate reading is at best iffy. Not knowing the exact instrument I would bet that it has a Maximum effective range of around a couple feet any more than that and the readings should be suspect. http://www.allqa.com/IR.htm Plus she just may have found a cold spot. Vienna did get dumped on last night. On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Snyder, Mark - IdM (IS) <[email protected] > wrote: > You may have seen tape recorded some time ago. However, when responding > to my doctor's questions about temperature, I replied, adding, but it's > just an old glass/mercury thermometer. Doctor replied - those are still > the best. > > Thank you, > Mark Snyder > -----Original Message----- As it was snowing here in the DC area last > night, I tuned to Channel > 9 at 11pm to see what they were reporting. Lo and behold they had, as > usual, someone out in the weather. A reporter was on the scene, out > in the show, pointing out how treacherous things may be getting. > Nearing the end of her short piece, she pulls out a digital > thermometer as says that she is going to take a temperature reading > just to let viewers see how bad things are getting (actually, it was > not really all that bad, but as we know, TV has to hype things up.) > She points the digital thermometer toward the ground and the camera > zooms in to get a close look at the digital display. Amazingly, the > thermometer is reading 16 degrees F. I say to myself, "How can that > possibly be." I live miles to the west where it is always colder and > it is but 30 degrees, and the on-screen temperature display as > provided by the TV station next to their logo says 32 degrees. No > correction or mention is made about the glaring disparity, so I was > left to wonder about just what the heck that was all about. > > > ************************************************************************* > ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** > ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** > ************************************************************************* > -- John Duncan Yoyo -------------------------------o) ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
