There are lots of sayings in medicine, often recited by grumpy old doctors like me, to remind more junior staff how medicine “works”, or once worked!! Sayings like “if you hear hooves, think horses”, “common things are common” or “as rare as hen’s teeth”. All of these mean that a patient’s symptoms are usually explained by a common disease rather than a rare one and that treatment and investigations should be targeted at the common diagnoses rather than something more obscure.
Note: those doing exams are often the worst offenders as they are cramming obscure knowledge in order to cover “everything possible” that an exam might test them on, even if it is as rare as hens teeth!
But why do we say this? What is wrong with sending every test you can possibly think of for every possible disease, however rare, that might explain the patient’s symptoms? How do Doctors choose what tests to perform and have you ever considered how reliable the results that come back are!? You might be shocked to know that not all tests are completely accurate.
Okay, bear with me on this. The science is complicated and involves statistics… (stay with me everyone!!!) but it’s a fundamental part of medicine so I’m going to stick with it, come on, come with me… there is a “are you still confused” recap at the end, honest you will get it, Editor-Chief-in-Charge wrote it and she doesn’t do stats!
Note: those doing exams are often the worst offenders as they are cramming obscure knowledge in order to cover “everything possible” that an exam might test them on, even if it is as rare as hens teeth!
But why do we say this? What is wrong with sending every test you can possibly think of for every possible disease, however rare, that might explain the patient’s symptoms? How do Doctors choose what tests to perform and have you ever considered how reliable the results that come back are!? You might be shocked to know that not all tests are completely accurate.
Okay, bear with me on this. The science is complicated and involves statistics… (stay with me everyone!!!) but it’s a fundamental part of medicine so I’m going to stick with it, come on, come with me… there is a “are you still confused” recap at the end, honest you will get it, Editor-Chief-in-Charge wrote it and she doesn’t do stats!
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