Chronically Ill? You May Not Be In Poor Health
A physical examination is not complete without an assessment of whether a patient appears to be acutely or chronically ill but a new paper says how sick a patient appears to be may have limited value in diagnosing their actual state of health. The researchers took photographs of patients who visited five of the hospital's primary care or general internal medicine clinics and asked them to fill out a survey regarding their general physical and mental health. General internal medicine physicians and residents looked at the photos, were told how old each patient was and were then asked "do you think this patient looks chronically ill?" The study found that a physician accurately identified that a patient was chronically ill in only 45.5 per cent of cases. read more