Welcome to the second edition of The Patient History: An Evidence-Based Approach to Differential Diagnosis. The purpose of this book is to introduce aspiring healthcare professionals to the timeless art of history taking, the gateway to establishing a diagnosis for a patient's symptoms. The patient's unique story lies at the heart of this endeavor and defies the categorization inherent to the printed page. There are, however, fundamental principles that can, and should, be articulated to start the novice on the correct path.
What makes this book different from other books on primary care? First and foremost, we use a patient-centered approach and have organized the book by symptoms rather than by diseases. Symptoms, after all, bring patients to the clinician. Second, we apply principles of evidence-based medicine to the clinical history; we highlight from the medical literature the most fruitful lines of questioning for making a diagnosis.
Despite the proliferation of modern diagnostic and imaging techniques, there is recent evidence that clinicians can still make a diagnosis for most patients using the history alone(Paley et al. Arch Intern Med. 2011;171:1394–1396). In this book, authors describe how historical data help to confirm or refute a particular diagnosis. Where aspects of the history have not been formally studied, the epidemiology, prevalence, and prognosis of the most common underlying conditions are reviewed. Such information, integrated with clinical experience, helps guide the interviewer toward the most important diagnostic considerations for a given symptom.
0 comments:
Post a Comment