Abstract

It would be hard to imagine medical care without diagnosis, so pivotal is it to how Western medicine is practiced. Diagnosis is one of medicine’s principle tools, bringing with it as it does an explanation for what ails the sick person, an idea of what the treatment options might be, a prognosis, and much more. It assigns responsibility for illness, within medicine and outside. It will determine which specialty or sub-specialty can take care of which disorders. It also explains causation, pointing the finger variably at the patient for what she ought to have done, or to the gene for what one can do little about. Diagnosis structures and explains relationships as it provides the impetus for the sick..