Diagnosis

Getting the right diagnosis is a key aspect of health care - it provides an explanation of a patient's health problem and informs subsequent health care decisions. The diagnostic process is a complex, collaborative activity that involves clinical reasoning and information gathering to determine a patient's health problem. According to Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, diagnostic errors-inaccurate or delayed diagnoses-persist throughout all settings of care and continue to harm an unacceptable number of patients. It is likely that most people will experience at least one diagnostic error in their lifetime, sometimes with devastating consequences. Diagnostic errors may cause harm to patients by preventing or delaying appropriate treatment, providing unnecessary or harmful treatment, or resulting in psychological or financial repercussions. The committee concluded that improving the diagnostic process is not only possible, but also represents a moral, professional, and public health imperative. Improving Diagnosis in Health Care, a continuation of the landmark Institute of Medicine reports To Err Is Human (2000) and Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), finds that diagnosis-and, in particular, the occurrence of diagnostic errorsâ€"has been largely unappreciated in efforts to improve the quality and safety of health care. Without a dedicated focus on improving diagnosis, diagnostic errors will likely worsen as the delivery of health care and the diagnostic process continue to increase in complexity. Just as the diagnostic process is a collaborative activity, improving diagnosis will require collaboration and a widespread commitment to change among health care professionals, health care organizations, patients and their families, researchers, and policy makers. The recommendations of Improving Diagnosis in Health Care contribute to the growing momentum for change in this crucial area of health care quality and safety.

A collection of more than fifty hard-to-crack medical quandaries, featuring the best of The New York Times Magazine's popular Diagnosis column—now a Netflix original series “Lisa Sanders is a paragon of the modern medical detective storyteller.”—Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal As a Yale School of Medicine physician, the New York Times bestselling author of Every Patient Tells a Story, and an inspiration and adviser for the hit Fox TV drama House, M.D., Lisa Sanders has seen it all. And yet she is often confounded by the cases she describes in her column: unexpected collections of symptoms that she and other physicians struggle to diagnose. A twenty-eight-year-old man, vacationing in the Bahamas for his birthday, tries some barracuda for dinner. Hours later, he collapses on the dance floor with crippling stomach pains. A middle-aged woman returns to her doctor, after visiting two days earlier with a mild rash on the back of her hands. Now the rash has turned purple and has spread across her entire body in whiplike streaks. A young elephant trainer in a traveling circus, once head-butted by a rogue zebra, is suddenly beset with splitting headaches, as if someone were “slamming a door inside his head.” In each of these cases, the path to diagnosis—and treatment—is winding, sometimes frustratingly unclear. Dr. Sanders shows how making the right diagnosis requires expertise, painstaking procedure, and sometimes a little luck. Intricate, gripping, and full of twists and turns, Diagnosis puts readers in the doctor’s place. It lets them see what doctors see, feel the uncertainty they feel—and experience the thrill when the puzzle is finally solved.

This innovative introduction to patient encounters utilizes an evidence-based step-by-step process that teaches students how to evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients based on the clinical complaints they present. By applying this approach, students are able to make appropriate judgments about specific diseases and prescribe the most effective therapy. (Product description).

Publisher's Note: Products purchased from Third Party sellers are not guaranteed by the publisher for quality, authenticity, or access to any online entitlements included with the product. "This book is a tremendous asset for students and residents learning to develop their diagnostic skills. It can also be useful as a refresher for established clinicians when the more common diagnoses are not the cause of a patient's complaints." —Doody's Review An engaging case-based approach to learning the diagnostic process in internal medicine Symptom to Diagnosis, Fourth Edition teaches an evidence-based, step-by-step process for evaluating, diagnosing, and treating patients based on their clinical complaints. By applying this process clinicians will be able to recognize specific diseases and prescribe the most effective therapy. Each chapter is built around a common patient complaint that illustrates essential concepts and provides insight into the process by which the differential diagnosis is identified. As the case progresses, clinical reasoning is explained in detail. The differential diagnosis for that particular case is summarized in tables that highlight the clinical clues and important tests for the leading diagnostic hypothesis and alternative diagnostic hypotheses. As the chapter progresses, the pertinent diseases are reviewed. Just as in real life, the case unfolds in a stepwise fashion as tests are performed and diagnoses are confirmed or refuted. Completely updated to reflect the latest research in clinical medicine, this fourth edition is enhanced by algorithms, summary tables, questions that direct evaluation, and an examination of recently developed diagnostic tools and guidelines. Clinical pearls are featured in every chapter. Coverage for each disease includes: Textbook Presentation, Disease Highlights, Evidence-Based Diagnosis, and Treatment.

Patients don’t present with a disease; they present with symptoms. Using a practical, symptom-based organization, Nelson Pediatric Symptom-Based Diagnosis: Common Diseases and their Mimics, 2nd Edition, offers authoritative guidance on differential diagnosis and treatment of diseases and disorders in children and adolescents, and covers the symptoms you’re likely to see in practice, their mimics, and uncommon disorders. Drs. Robert M. Kliegman, Heather Toth, Brett J. Bordini, and Donald Basel walk you through what to consider and how to proceed when faced with common symptoms such as cough, fever, headache, autistic-like behaviors, chronic pain, chest pain, gait disturbances, and much more. Begins with a presenting symptom and leads you through differential diagnosis and a concise review of treatment recommendations. Contains more than a dozen new topics including Disease Mimics: An Approach to Undiagnosed Diseases, Autistic-like Behaviors, Shock, Hypertension, Neurocognitive and Developmental Regression, Chronic Pain, Hypertonicity, Movement Disorders, Hypermobility, and more. Features a new focus on symptoms of rarer diseases that are mimics of more common diseases. Offers a user-friendly approach to Altered Mental Status such as coma and other CNS disorders, with numerous clinically useful tables and figures to guide clinical decision making in various care settings. Uses a highly templated format for easy reference and quick answers to clinical questions, with the same consistent presentation in each chapter: History, Physical Examination, Diagnosis (including laboratory tests), Imaging, Diagnosis, and Treatment. Includes numerous full-color illustrations, algorithms, tables, and "red flags" to aid differential diagnosis. Serves as an ideal companion to Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics, 21st Edition. Content in this book is referenced and linked electronically to the larger text, providing easy access to full background and evidence-based treatment and management content when you own both references.

Small Animal Medical Differential Diagnosis, 2nd Edition is a practical, concise guide to the differential diagnosis, etiology, laboratory abnormalities, and classification of clinical signs and medical disorders in dogs and cats. By covering nearly every possible sign and clinical disorder relevant to small animal medical practice, this pocket-sized, rapid reference helps you make more reliable on-the-scene decisions. More than 400 lists bring the most important medical diagnostic information from multiple resources into a single rapid reference. An organized presentation of differential diagnoses by sign and symptom, disorder, and body system, facilitates quick and flexible access to information at many stages of the diagnostic work-up. Alphabetical listing of all relevant laboratory tests makes information easy to find for students and experienced practitioners alike. Easily identify the likeliest diagnosis by reviewing the possibilities listed in order of incidence. Pocket-sized for portability, practicality, and quick reference. NEW! Coverage of new disorders and syndromes expands the span of differential diagnoses to help you effectively evaluate more signs and symptoms. NEW! Addition of new and more widely used diagnostic and laboratory tests keeps you up-to-date as lab tests become more specialized and sophisticated.

Despite diagnosis being the key feature of a physician's clinical performance, this is the first book that deals specifically with the topic. In recent years, however, considerable interest has been shown in this area and significant developments have occurred in two main areas: a) an awareness and increasing understanding of the critical role of clinical decision making in the process of diagnosis, and of the multiple factors that impact it, and b) a similar appreciation of the role of the healthcare system in supporting clinicians in their efforts to make accurate diagnoses. Although medicine has seen major gains in knowledge and technology over the last few decades, there is a consensus that the diagnostic failure rate remains in the order of 10-15%. This book provides an overview of the major issues in this area, in particular focusing on where the diagnostic process fails, and where improvements might be made.