Probabilities (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, April 19, 2014, 04:03 (3870 days ago) @ romansh


> Romansh: I never said or meant to suggest doctors are not taught about about false positive and negative results. I fully expect them to be taught about such phenomena. I would also expect them to be taught these things and the how to interpret such data. 
> 
> It would appear, if the interpretation of false positive and negatives the learnings have not stuck. Of course (I hope) doctors don't rely on a single test for a diagnosis.-Sometimes that is all it takes: As I have said the average complex diagnosis will have a constellation of factors reviewed and studied. But some diagnoses require just one test. The problem is having to think of the possibility. I had a patient who had enormous bouts of swelling anywhere in the body. Fatal in the larnyx if prolonged. She had been treated with epinephrine by IV and in her thoat. She came to me and luckily I had recently read a case report about "C-1 esterase inhibitor deficiency". At Baylor Med school luckily there was an immunology prof who could run the single test to prove the point which he did. Luckily the research folks studying the condition had devised a treatment to prevent such episodes. -I don't think your worry about probabilities in medical practice is much of an issue. You are looking in from the outside and I don't think you fully understand how or what good doctors are capable of doing diagnostically.