Why do docs order a chest xray for my child when lung sounds do not support a pneumonia diagnosis?

Depends: Sometimes auscultation (listening to patient's lungs) may be misleading especially if the location of pneumonia is deep and the focus is small. The other consideration might be that they want to rule out other possible chest disorders that your child is having. Unfortunately, children may not relay their history as well as adults, so you may want to admit some extra testing to be on a safe side.

Not 100%: Good question. It's hard when our kids are sick and we're asked to do testing. Normal lung sounds aren't 100% proof there's no pneumonia. [one small study showed that relying on only lung sounds missed up 1/3 to 1/2 of pneumonias.] i hope your child's feeling better soon.

Lung sound: Lung sound cannot cofirm DX of pneumonia, ches xray can confirm that.

Other reasons: Depending on the history of present illness (i.e. The details of your chief complaint), you doctor might be looking for something beyond just a simple pneumonia; lung sounds can't detect things such as a lung cavity, small lesion, or organ anomaly. Since the sensitivity of specific lung sounds are poor (e.g. Crackles, rales, ronchi, egophony), the x-ray us used as a tool for better diagnoses.