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When something goes wrong with your body you VISIT
A DOCTOR to get it working right again.
The first thing your doctor will do when you sit in front of
him or her is ask you questions. This is because they
need to narrow their search down to what two or three problems
you most likely have.
A good interview alone can lead a clinician to a correct guess
diagnosis up to 90% of the time.
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This is because diseases tend to have unique
signatures, i.e. their symptoms repeat again and again like fingerprints
in persons they strike.
Once your doctor has an idea what might be your problem
they then look for proof. This is done by examining you,
looking for physical evidence, and through tests related to your complaints.
With all this information together, your doctor then
makes a logical calculation of your diagnosis like this:
Symptoms + PHYSICAL FINDINGS + Test
Results = Diagnosis
Of these three inputs, physical findings are regarded
highest, i.e. if a doctor listens to your chest and hears fluid
in it, s/he will treat you for this even if your chest x-ray looks
normal and blood tests says that your oxygen level is fine.
After diagnosis your doctor then provides a standardized
treatment /prescription for your ailment. These treatments are
developed by university hospitals and large clinical trials
which compare treatments for effectiveness. The best results from
these studies are then printed and circulated as treatment recommendations
to physicians.
Diagnosis is very important to doctors because
it is the language that doctors think in. A diagnosis is a name
for a disease which has X symptoms, X physical findings, and X test
results. The beauty of a diagnosis label is that another doctor seeing
you for the first time immediately knows what symptoms you probably
have, what to expect physically, and what your treatment should be.
The last step after treatment is follow-up. This
means a repeat visit to your doctor where s/he checks that you are
back to normal. Chronic illnesses like diabetes and high blood pressure
where the problem never goes away, need long-term follow-up every
couple of months to monitor that the disease is staying under control
and not progressing.
