A specific diagnosis is one of the most critical activities for patients by physicians. However, this is not a simple starting method. Teaching in as much medicine as you can takes years, and your skills are established and strengthened from an effective history and a physical evaluation on an evidence-based basis to an appropriate analysis of clinical data, such as laboratory and imaging studies. It also calls for an appreciation of the mechanism of clinical thinking and its possible shortcomings, including the correct ways of thinking in various clinical conditions, and for our own flaws to be identified in the diagnostic reasoning system. You have to call for a family medicine clinic in such a case.
There are more “artistic” diagnostic elements involving the application of all these aspects to a particular patient, bringing them into the process as active participants and carrying out cautious, rational, deliberate diagnostic thinking that takes into account their specific circumstances and wishes. This is without considering more patient and systemic variables, which can make it much more difficult to obtain a correct diagnosis.
It is also not surprising that it takes years of preparation and an accumulation of clinical knowledge to improve an already complex task to become an efficient diagnostic. However, we are likely not as good at making exact diagnoses, even under normal conditions, with proof that we struggle at least 10% of the time in this attempt. And the pandemic of coronavirus and its impact on how we use medicine now definitely has made it much more difficult to make correct clinical diagnoses than ever.
Many of the diagnostic results from the pandemic are visible. It definitely impairs our ability to acquire the clinical knowledge needed to inform our diagnostic process by moving from personal meetings to safer experiences with patients. Data on a specific symptom or complaint can often be difficult to obtain through electronic means, and it simply cannot be practicable to collect often vital physical test details to make an effective diagnosis.
But the diagnosis phase of the pandemic, which affects both the doctors and the patients, may also have major implications.
Family medicine clinicians have the ability to effect successful diagnostic decisions that involve deliberate, intentional thinking and which have become difficult with such changes as a pandemic change or an overload of critically ill patients in the routines of practice.
Contact Oklahoma Spine & Pain Management to get clinically diagnosed by proper doctors during the pandemic as well. We are just a call away from you.
**Disclaimer: This content should not be considered medical advice and does not imply a doctor-patient relationship.
