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« Back to Glossary Index

Medical Diagnosis and Diagnostic Procedures
- Medical diagnosis is the process of determining which disease or condition explains a person's symptoms and signs.
- Diagnosis is often challenging because many signs and symptoms are nonspecific.
- A diagnostic procedure allows for classification of an individual's condition into distinct categories.
- General components of a diagnostic procedure include data gathering, physical examination, and diagnostic tests.
- Processing of the gathered information may involve consultations with other providers and specialists.
- Differential diagnosis and medical algorithms are commonly used methods in a diagnostic procedure.
- A diagnostic test is any medical test performed to aid in the diagnosis or detection of disease.
- Differential diagnosis involves finding possible diseases or conditions that can cause the signs or symptoms.
- Medical tests and further processing are used to eliminate or rank the probability of each candidate condition.
- The resultant diagnostic opinion may be a diagnosis of exclusion or a list of possible conditions.
- Further medical tests, such as medical imaging, may be performed to confirm or disprove the diagnosis.
- Pattern recognition is a method where the provider uses experience to recognize a pattern of clinical characteristics.
- It is mainly based on certain symptoms or signs being associated with certain diseases or conditions.
- This method is used in cases where diseases are obvious or when a diagnosis cannot be made.
- Recognizing a certain pattern of signs or symptoms can lead to a certain therapy, but carries the risk of missing a different diagnosis.
- Diagnostic criteria are the specific combination of signs, symptoms, and test results used by clinicians to determine a diagnosis.
- Diagnostic criteria help standardize the process of diagnosis and ensure consistency in medical practice.
- Different diseases and conditions may have their own specific diagnostic criteria.

Clinical Decision Support System
- Interactive computer programs designed to assist health professionals with decision-making tasks.
- Clinician interacts with the software to make better analysis of patient data.
- System makes suggestions for the clinician to review and select useful information.
- Some programs replace the clinician, requiring regulatory approval.
- Augmented Intelligence systems support but do not replace the clinician.

Adverse Effects and Overdiagnosis
- Diagnosis problems account for 35% of medical malpractice payments.
- Diagnosis errors are the dominant cause of medical malpractice payments.
- Diagnostic errors can lead to economic waste and harm from unnecessary treatments.
- Diagnosis errors occur in at least one in a person's lifetime.
- Diagnosis errors can be caused by various factors such as manifestation of disease or rare conditions.
- Overdiagnosis is the diagnosis of disease that will never cause symptoms or death.
- Overdiagnosis turns people into patients unnecessarily.
- Overdiagnosis can lead to economic waste and treatments that may cause harm.
- Correct diagnosis may be irrelevant if treatment is not available or not needed.
- Overdiagnosis occurs when a disease is diagnosed correctly but the diagnosis is irrelevant.

Errors in Diagnosis
- Most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime.
- Causes and factors of error in diagnosis include unnoticed disease manifestations.
- Errors can occur when a disease is omitted from consideration.
- Errors can occur when too much significance is given to a specific aspect of the diagnosis.
- Rare diseases with symptoms suggestive of many other conditions can lead to errors.

Historical Perspectives on Diagnosis
- Edwin Smith Papyrus
- Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Medicine
- Medicine in China
- Hippocrates and the history of diagnosis
- Evolution of diagnostic methods.

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