viz.

Well, the doc's explanation of why they hand out this images was even more underwhelming than I would have imagined. He claims it's just so that patients have a record of the procedure. But this seems bogus because: 1) the photos hardly serve as a complete or reliable record; and, 2) only orthopaedic surgeons seem to do this regularly. After the dozens of x-rays, CT scans, MRIs, endoscopes and other medical imaging procedures I have undergone, only the orthopaedic surgeons have sent me home with my own copy of the pictures, which still leaves me thinking that there's more to this.

I personally don't see this as the positivism of science perpetuating science-is-all sorts of myths much as I see it as perhaps smart marketing on the part of surgeons. There's a tactile-ness to a photo that I think people crave, even, or especially, in cases like these, where most patients really don't know what's going on and are already at the mercy of their physician's knowledge (which becomes tantamount to authority).