UNDERSTANDING THE MEDICAL PROCESSES

Many parents do not understand that there are medical processes followed by medical professionals in making diagnosis. As a Paediatrician who often provides free medical advice online especially on our Ask The Paediatricians Facebook Group we often receive complaints from parents and members when we asked to go to the hospital or see a doctor after they have asked us questions about their child’s health. They wonder why we can  not provide diagnosis simply by what they have told us and also tell them the treatment right away. After all, they already have access to the doctors on the group!

Well, this is what I will be addressing in this article.  Parents and caregivers need to understand these medical processes we undertake. I will be explaining a few of these processes to understand why it is important to see a medical professional irrespective of whatever medical information you have online.

First, you need to know that no doctor can give you a diagnosis based on just one symptom or even a group of symptoms only.

For example let us look at a child with abdominal pain. What is the diagnosis? For the complaint of abdominal pain alone, just telling us where the pain is located is not enough to make a diagnosis!

There are so many other questions to ask. There are more than 10 questions about the pain alone before asking asking so many other questions not even about abdominal pain. I am sure some of you have wondered what the age of your husband, whether he smoke or is hypertensive and how many other children you have to do with this abdominal pain! I mean what has your religion or recent travel got to do with abdominal pain? A lot and you just don’t know it yet.

This is what we call HISTORY TAKING and it is even just step one of the medical process in making a diagnosis.

After some minutes of taking adequate history; maybe as short as in 5 minutes or long as in 30 – 60 minutes depending on what we are dealing with, then the second step is PHYSICAL EXAMINATION where the doctor actually examines the body; the area you are complaining about and those that you have not complained about as well. Your eyes will be checked even if you only complained of abdominal pain!

After these two processes, the doctor can sometimes know your diagnosis. At other times, he is not sure and may be suspecting 2, 3 or 6 possible diagnoses! We call them DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSES. S/he will then need to investigate that is what you often call LABORATORY TESTS or XRAYS/SCANS to really confirm which of the possible diagnoses is the correct one. Usually, we start with simple investigations and if those are not sufficient to still help to confirm the diagnosis, we go ahead to do more complex and usually more expensive ones.

It is AFTER completion of most if not all the above medical processes that TREATMENTS can be recommended. This process is even not what we do in EMERGENCY!! The medical processes will be rearranged with focus on keeping the person alive first before addressing diagnosis and treatment.

So you now see and hope you can appreciate why it is not appropriate to expect us to give you diagnosis based on two sentences of symptoms you wrote and expect us to recommend treatment as well.

It is also obvious that the ABOVE MEDICAL PROCESSES can not be done online. Even if we attempt to ask you all the questions (HISTORY TAKING) online (which will require a lot of back and forth and which is not even suitable on a public platform as DOCTOR-PATIENT CONFIDENTIALITY will not allow such, it is obviously obvious that we CAN NOT DO PHYSICAL EXAMINATION on Facebook!!!

This is the reason we always TELL YOU TO SEE A DOCTOR when your question is about an illness! We are not being hard or difficult. We are doing the right thing and following DUE PROCESS! That is being ETHICAL! Our professionals are not like many experienced mothers and self-proclaimed “doctors” who often make diagnosis based on one symptom hearsay and go on to recommend treatment not remembering that there are many conditions that can present with same symptoms!

This also by implication extends to treatment and why it is difficult to “copy and paste” treatment from one child to another child because they have same or similar symptoms. The diagnoses may be poles apart.

Going back to the case study of abdominal pain again. Abdominal pain in one child may be due to something simple as constiaption that taking fruits, water and vegetables alone will be sufficient. In another child, abdominal pain may be due to intussusception that requires the child to have surgery immediately.

It is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS to copy treatment without seeing a doctor.

Please also BEWARE of going to Google Medical School for diagnosis and treatment. You better read the disclaimer there first. Medical information provided online and even on platform like Ask The Paediatricians does not replace consultation with your doctor!

This is one reason we also do not like to comment on treatment recommendations by your own doctors who supposedly have carried out all these medical processes first before giving you treatment. Please read ATP disclaimer as well as we are not liable for any outcome based on advice given here.

I hope this helps! So please don’t get upset when we say “See a doctor or Paediatrician” or “Go to the hospital”. In most instances, it is the best advice for you at the time and may be live-saving! It is many times in your best interest.