title: The structure of diagnosis in medicine: introduction to interrogative characteristics.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Logic and Methodology of Science, Institute of Philosophy, A. Mickiewicz University, ul. Szamarzewskiego 89c, 60-569, Poznan, Poland. tomasz.rzepinski@neostrada.pl
authors.forename: Tomasz Mark
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Rzepiński
mesh_terms: D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D019937:Diagnostic Techniques and Procedures; D006801:Humans; D008128:Logic; D008487:Medical History Taking / Q000379:methods*