Diagnosis by proxy

Abstract

Diagnoses in family practice often insinuate themselves into one's subconscious or emerge out of a mist of awarenesses. They creep up rather than announcing themselves like they do in hospital wards. These diagnoses are made by the adsorption of past incidences and casual comments from those close to the patients themselves. This information coalesces with the items in one's stored image and memory banks to form a hunch or a serendipidous discovery or a sudden revelation. There is even a term describing it - pattern recognition. One-off consultations on visitors or patients referred for consultations only have the benefit of the interview and the examination whereas the essential consultation in family practice has, all these other avenues of help as well - the sixth sense of hunch, the seventh sense of experience and the eighth sense of stored history.