Fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and other iatrogenic diagnostic algorithms
Postgraduate MedicinePublished 1 August 1997
Nortin M. Hadler
Citations64
SJR quartileQ2
SJR score0.76
SNIP0.81
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TL;DR
Dr Hadler challenges readers to look at the difficult questions linked with diagnostic labels that might teach patients to stay sick.
Abstract
Contemporary medicine has the sophistication to identify the clinical settings in which the hunt for a diagnosis can be harmful to a patient's health. Which patients are best served by a prolonged search for a cause? Why has the disease-illness paradigm backfired for so many patients? Dr Hadler challenges readers to look at the difficult questions linked with diagnostic labels that might teach patients to stay sick.
Keywords
Medicine
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