An Italian physician is under investigation for wasting public resources by giving his cat a computed axial tomography scan after she fell six stories off the roof of his building, the Guardian reports.
Dr Gianluca Fanelli, head of the radiology unit at Umberto Parini hospital in Aosta, said his cat Athena was “between life and death” he “knew I could only save her with a quick intervention,” requiring the computed axial tomography scan to diagnose her injuries. Fanelli then performed surgery on Athena and indeed saved her life. Local health authorities were less than pleased with Fanelli for the rogue, non-human medical care and referred the case to prosecutors to investigate whether charges of wasting public resources and depriving patients of essential services.
Fanelli says the computed axial tomography scan and surgery had both been conducted after-hours when none of the equipment or rooms were booked for human patients, adding that he’s more than willing to reimburse the hospital for the supplies he used to save his cat. Whether or not an actual veterinarian in the town was on-call at the time and could have done the job is not known.
And yes computed axial tomography scans are abbreviated as CAT scans. It’s very cheeky.