Diagnostic Process, Making a Diagnosis

The diagnostic process is central to clinical medicine. Patients come to a physician with complaints, and the physician attempts to identify the illnesses responsible for the complaints. The physician accomplishes this task by eliciting from patients their collection of signs (manifestations of the disease perceived by the physician, brought forth during the physical examination) and symptoms (manifestation of the disease perceived by the patient and brought forth during the history taking). Generally, physicians make treatment errors as the result of diagnostic errors. If the disease responsible for the complaints is correctly diagnosed, the correct treatment has a high probability of being prescribed. This makes good sense. Treatments can be looked up in reference materials; making the correct diagnosis is more complex.