J Med Philos. 2013 Aug 29. [Epub ahead of print]
Differential Diagnosis and the Suspension of Judgment.
Abstract
In this paper I argue that ethics
and evidence are intricately intertwined within the clinical practice
of differential diagnosis. Too often, when a disease is difficult to
diagnose, a physician will dismiss it as being "not real" or "all in the
patient's head." This is both an ethical and an evidential problem. In
the paper my aim is two-fold. First, via the examination of two case
studies (late-stage Lyme disease and Addison's disease), I try to
elucidate why this kind of dismissal takes place. Then, I propose a
potential solution to the problem. I argue that instead of dismissing a
patient's illness as "not real," physicians ought to exercise a
compassionate suspension of judgment when a diagnosis cannot be
immediately made. I argue that suspending judgment has methodological,
epistemic, and ethical virtues and therefore should always be preferred
to patient dismissal in the clinical setting.
No comments:
Post a Comment