Diagnostic Decision Making in Medicine

Medical diagnostic decision making, like all decision making instances, involves a cognitive process. It starts with internalizing data, structuring it and generating hypotheses. In simple cases very often the experienced physician utilizes pattern recognition, intuition and retrieval in reaching a diagnostic decision. In more complicated cases more complex cognitive process takes place including the balancing of probabilities and the weighing of evidence. Apart from knowledge and experience, personal traits and perceptions and prejudices play some part in some situations.