But in the patient's complaint about X, wouldn't X just be another symptom?
For instance, let's say a patient complains of a headache. The doctor uses whatever other knowledge they have of the patient to come up with some candidate diagnoses, and proceeds checking for symptoms from each of the candidates.
Presumably 'headache' is just another symptom on the diagnostic criteria for each of the other candidates. So why is it treated specially?
(Btw, thanks for your response—not sure why you were downvoted, but that was not from me!)
Right, my point is that the symptom X is often an implied one.... it isn't expressed in the diagnostic test explicitly, because the diagnostic test is run only when someone has symptom x.
For instance, let's say a patient complains of a headache. The doctor uses whatever other knowledge they have of the patient to come up with some candidate diagnoses, and proceeds checking for symptoms from each of the candidates.
Presumably 'headache' is just another symptom on the diagnostic criteria for each of the other candidates. So why is it treated specially?
(Btw, thanks for your response—not sure why you were downvoted, but that was not from me!)