Soundings

Medical intuition

BMJ 2006; 332 doi: 10.1136/bmj.332.7539.497-a (Published 23 February 2006)
Cite this as: BMJ 2006;332:497.2

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  1. Kevin Barraclough, general practitioner
  1. Painswick, Gloucestershire

    Specificity is the unsung hero in general practice. When I was a medical student it was the poor relative to sensitivity. Sensitivity was all about making smart diagnoses. But as you get older you realise the importance of identifying those who should remain confident in their health—the importance of not seeing disease everywhere, of not medicalising the world.

    When trying to explain the fundamental laws of nature the physicist Richard Feynman used the analogy of watching the gods playing …

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