There are two patterns to identify among doctors (and other health professionals) which signal evidence they might not be getting the diagnosis right. Both types are very prevalent in discussions of acute and long COVID.
Premature closure is a cognitive error where the physician fails to consider the reasonable alternatives and settles on a diagnosis that does not match the clinical characteristics of the disease. This faulty decision making process often leads to delayed diagnosis.
At the other extreme is labeling disease processes as multifactorial. While every health problem has many contributing factors, this attribution is cognitive cover for the fact that the physician just doesn’t know. It can provide false justification for not investigating further.
A middle ground is to resist the temptation to chose an easy but imperfect diagnosis while considering alternatives especially those that stand in opposition to your current thinking. Also maintaining a willingness to investigate further and test your underlying assumptions.
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I’m realizing that in modern medicine there are these conditions that are viewed as unpopular siblings in certain disciplines. For instance in rheumatology it might be Sjogrens and in neurology it might be POTS.
Those who study more well defined and understood conditions scoff at the poor research in these areas, question the clinical practices, and often label patients with those conditions as difficult or likely falsely attributing symptoms that might not be real.
I wonder if it was the same many years ago when there were other conditions that weren’t well understood. If doctors had the same gall and presumptions. Or maybe back then there was a much more prevalent acceptance that knowledge was limited.
Aptamers. Oligonucleotide or peptide molecules that bind to a specific target molecule. I’m almost certain that this is the one big medical advances that is going to come out of this pandemic.
You already see companies including BioNTech doing something similar by deploying mRNA to treat early MS which is an autoimmune disease. These short segments of mRNA get coded into what are the equivalent of aptamers.
These aptamers can then bind to specific target molecules with a certain degree of specificity depending on the proteins encoded. That could include autoimmune antibodies or other disease causing molecules.