This is an invited guest post by Dr. Cory Rohlfsen (@CoryRohlfsen) based on an interesting twitter thread of his from a few month back. Dr. Rohlfsen is a hybrid internal medicine clinician at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He splits his time between hospitalist duties and primary care clinic. […]
diagnosis
4 posts
When we talk about diagnostic tests, we are obsessed with sensitivities and specificities. In many papers, they are the only numbers reported. When we discuss diagnostic tests at conferences, sensitivity and specificity are frequently the only numbers mentioned. Even on First10EM, I have frequently given sensitivity and specificity the leading […]
Clinician gestalt is one of those terms that people either love or hate. Lovers will point out how, almost every time that it is studied, gestalt is at least as accurate as validated clinical decision tools. Haters will lament the inclusion of gestalt in decision tools like the Well’s score, […]
My transition from medical student to practicing diagnostician was marked by one key realization: doctors don’t make definitive diagnoses. Many think that we do. Our patients are certainly under that illusion. But even at the best of times, the physician’s job to to determine the probability of disease.