Medical Decision Making and Medical Problem Solving are two main approaches used to describe the cognitive processes underlying clinical diagnosis.(1) This distinction is the result of historical factors. A diagnosis is a statement about what disease someone has (http://www.macmillandictionary.com) based on symptoms (subjectively) and signs (objectively).(2) Medical decision making (MDM) models are concerned with diagnostic reasoning as an opinion revision process.(3) They make use of Bayes’ theorem, likelihood ratios, prior and posterior odds, thresholds, schemes and decision trees to arrive at the best diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. (1;3-7) These mathematical models, incorporating clinical epidemiological data, are related to the concept of evidence-based medicine. read more