It is such an important step in the clinical reasoning process. Developing a thorough and comprehensive DDx will help prevent you from overlooking serious pathologies, it will ensure you consider all possibilities and it will make you a more effective clinician. In this episode Shaun and Bodine pull apart the process required for developing a differential diagnoses list, what you should do with it, and why it is so important.
It is far too easy to fall into the trap of jumping to conclusions quickly, without weighing up the evidence that your patient presents to you in clinic with. The tried and true DDx process is the one thing that will help you ensure you aren’t wasting your patient’s (or your) time with assessment and treatment that gets you nowhere. It may also be the thing that helps identify a potentially sinister underlying pathology that could result in something quite serious.
