Scientists advise doctors not to ignore the "sixth sense"
Last reviewed: 20.11.2021
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Medical intuition can sometimes be very useful, because scientists recommend not to ignore the "sixth sense" that arises in doctors.
Sometimes there are situations when the attending physician, not finding the symptoms of a particular disease, still feels that something is amiss with his patient. Oxford researchers, as well as their colleagues from Belgium, advise not to dismiss such feelings, because despite all the analyzes that may not show the presence of infection in the human body, the "sixth sense" of the doctor is capable of accurately assessing the threat to the health of the patient.
Especially it is applied to the treatment of young children who can not fully enlighten the doctors about their feelings and pains, and therefore it is very difficult to put the child to a diagnosis, sometimes it is comparable to a needle in a haystack.
In the experiment, scientists took part children aged from several months to 16 years.
In addition to the general principles of the survey, the impressions of the doctors were also recorded, even if, according to the analysis, the child's health was not threatened.
Of the 3,369 children who did not have serious illnesses at the time of the survey, 0.2% were hospitalized because of serious infections.
The results suggest that medical intuition makes sense, because if you listen to it, then on average you can identify serious diseases in time in two of six children, which under normal circumstances would not have been diagnosed.
The probability of a serious infection in this case decreased from 0.2% to 0.1%.
The authors also found that the "sixth sense" of doctors is strongly influenced by parental concerns, and less experienced doctors reported their suspicions more often than their older colleagues.
Experts recommend not to "jam" physicians with intuitive suspicions about the health of patients, because this, one way or another, is a very important diagnostic method.
In addition, it is good if the fears of the doctors are not confirmed and the patient's health is not threatened with anything serious, and yet, if the intuition does not fail the medical worker, then, with a very low probability, it is possible to save the person's life.