What Is Medical Diagnosis?
A medical diagnosis (Greek dia = apart; gnosis = knowledge, insight), short Dx, is the physician’s conclusion about which disease, disorder, injury or state his patient is affected by.
Only a registered physician can give a medical diagnosis. Other health workers (nurses, technicians) and non-medical specialists, even those with Dr. or PhD in their titles, can not and may not give a medical diagnosis.
Diagnostic procedure includes asking a patient for symptoms by taking a medical history, finding signs of the disease by a physical examination, checking results of medical investigations and making conclusion from obtained data.
Examples of diagnoses are “staphylococcal pneumonia in the middle lobe of the right lung”, “high blood pressure”, “broken lower right rib”, “panic attack”.
Differential diagnosis, short DD, is a list of diseases that seem to be a possible cause of patient’s symptoms at certain point of diagnostic procedure. When only one disease remains on the list, the final diagnosis can be given. For example, a DD in a patient coughing blood includes: chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, pulmonary embolism, injury of the chest, etc.
References:
- What diagnosis stands for? (dictionary.reference.com)
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