The art of diagnosis

April 7, 2007

Maurice Bernstein writes about how making diagnoses are rarely black and white:

In fact, I think the art really trumps the science itself in most cases. Why do I say that? It is because no two patients are the same and no two same diseases present exactly the same way nor are their courses exactly the same. It is also because lab tests are rarely or ever 100% sensitive and also 100% specific. That means that at times a lab test will miss a disease or will indicate the disease is present but actually it isn’t.



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{ 3 comments }

1 Anonymous April 8, 2007 at 12:16 am

And yet, clinicians are willing to prostitute themselves out on PI cases and peddle their post hoc ergo propter hoc nonsense regarding not only the diagnosis but also the etiology with a “reasonable degree of medical certainty.”

~Criminallopath~

2 Anonymous April 8, 2007 at 12:20 pm

Anon 12:16A: “reasonable degree of medical certainty.”

-along this vein, there is no implication of absolute certainty, nor 100% precision and accuracy
-REASONABLE clinicians interpret data at hand; assults on this process come from sociopaths and psychopaths out to manipulate the clinician for benefit of their agenda: be it prescription of regulated substances or disability qualification

3 NoAcuteDistress April 8, 2007 at 1:18 pm

“assults on this process come from sociopaths and psychopaths out to manipulate the clinician for benefit of their agenda”

I resemble that remark!
-John Edwards

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