Our stubborn quest for diagnostic certainty.

Jerome P Kassirer

Commentary

Our stubborn quest for diagnostic certainty.

June 1, 1989

Kassirer JP. N Engl J Med. 1989;320(22):1489-1491.

View more articles from the same authors.

The topic of uncertainty has been largely neglected in the literature despite an understanding that diagnostic reasoning is largely probabilistic. This commentary acknowledges how uncertainty drives reasoning, test overuse, and physician discomfort to culminate in waste and reduced quality.

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