Figures, diagnostic errors and consequences

Abstract

It is common for doctors to make the mistake of transforming data, numbers or information into a clinical diagnosis. Thus we confuse a figure of glucose with diabetes, or of blood pressure with hypertension or of body weight with obesity. An essential procedure of good practice, which is clinical reasoning, the role of the physician, is omitted. One has to think if that glucose value is in fasting, if the blood pressure is at rest or the body weight is of a two-meter athletic male or of a patient with gastric by-pass. In short, incorporate the data, the information, to the patient and only then think if it is normal or pathological, if he is healthy, sick or performs effectively its treatment. After processing the biology of the medical information, we must add the biography of that human being and make it more complex in its emotional and social environment. Only after this cognitive process that requires an acute listening with a personalized life history, we can approach the diagnosis and consequently the treatment options.