The structure of diagnosis in medicine: introduction to interrogative characteristics.
The main purpose of this article is to present the methodological characteristics of a diagnostic process. A proposal is put forward to treat that process as a specific type of a research investigation. The research investigation can be represented in the notional systems of various concepts of the question logic. In this article I attempt to formulate a preliminary notional description of the diagnostic process with the use of terms being questions. Adopting this perspective of deliberations, I maintain that during a diagnostic process a doctor employs a specific type of reasoning, where questions constitute lingual formulations of diagnostic problems. The article describes the structure of a diagnostic question which is used to incorporate diagnostic problems. I provide arguments for a thesis that such questions are meant to correlate information obtained on a patient's condition. Pointing at various aspects of temporality of a diagnostic process, I intend to present its preliminary characteristics in terms of a research investigation. My deliberations are based on exemplifications in the area of medical diagnostics, mainly in cardiology.
Rzepiński
Tomasz Mark
TM
Department of Logic and Methodology of Science, Institute of Philosophy, A. Mickiewicz University, ul. Szamarzewskiego 89c, 60-569, Poznan, Poland. tomasz.rzepinski@neostrada.pl
D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D019937:Diagnostic Techniques and Procedures; D006801:Humans; D008128:Logic; D008487:Medical History Taking / Q000379:methods*