Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Analysis

Chronic kidney disease in elderly people: disease or disease label?

BMJ 2016; 352 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h6559 (Published 18 January 2016) Cite this as: BMJ 2016;352:h6559

Rapid Response:

Diagnosis & Prognosis

Physicians treat sickness by probing the past and present (diagnosis), prescribing medicine or surgery, and predicting the future (prognosis). But sometimes physicians are wrong, because they’re so focused on esoteric scientific knowledge, that they ignore plain common sense by overlooking obvious questions, such as the patient’s contact with toxins and addictions, both of which are common causes of sickness. A wise physician knows that knowledge plus common sense is wisdom, but knowledge minus common sense is nonsense. 


Competing interests: No competing interests

19 January 2016
Hugh Mann
Physician
Retired
New York, NY, USA