The phenomenology of the diagnostic process: a primary care based survey Abstract Background. While dichotomous tasks and related cognitive strategies have been extensively researched in cognitive psychology, little is known about how primary care practitioners (general practitioners [GPs]) approach ill-defined or polychotomous tasks and how valid or useful their strategies are. Objective. To investigate cognitive… read more

Spanish general practitioners (GPs) recognise the presence and role of gut feelings in their diagnostic reasoning process. The results of this study are similar to those of previous research of GPs conducted in the Netherlands and France, in terms of recognition of the existence of GFs and their typology. However, the authors found some small differences in… read more

Rare diseases are those with a prevalence of less than 1 in 2000 and about 8000 have been identified. When is is impossible for general practitioners (GPs) to be able to diagnose all these diseases, it is important that they are alert to possible diagnoses and order investigations or to refer the patient on as… read more

The average positive predictive value of cancer-related gut feeling was 35%, and it increased with 2% with each year a patient becomes older, and with 3% with each year a GP becomes older. See this link.

Invited comment: In a letter to the editor of the Annals of Family Medicine, Marie Barais, Erik Stolper and Paul Van Royen give their comments on an article comparing the results of the Wells rule with the Gestalt. Their main criticism is that what the authors called Gestalt did not differ from what they measured… read more