Sep 10, 2010 13:11 GMT  ·  By

For effectively treating a patient, the diagnostic is vital, but apparently there are a few issues in the United Kingdom, says a senior doctor online in the British Medical Journal.

Doctors need better facilities and enough time for each patient in order to make a correct diagnosis, says Dr Gordon Caldwell, a consultant physician at Worthing Hospital in Western Sussex.

In movies and TV series we see that after an initial diagnosis is established, and a certain treatment is applied, the patient suddenly gets worse after being better and only then begins a brainstorming for an exact diagnosis.

Well, according to Dr Caldwell, in real life things are not so different after all, reports Science Daily.

It all starts with a patient being brought to the hospital, and a team of doctors formulating a “working diagnosis”.

This diagnosis is not certain but the patient is treated as if it were the case and “if over the next few days the patient gets better, the working diagnosis is confirmed and becomes the diagnosis,” says Dr Caldwell.

However, if the patient's state does not improve, “we think again and consider whether the working diagnosis was wrong.”

The big problem is that “the time taken to reach the correct diagnosis may critically impact on the patient's chances of survival.”

Dr Caldwell says that in his career he has witnessed “many errors in the working diagnosis causing harm and even death to patients.”

Today, not enough importance is given to the way that doctors make and refine the working diagnosis and treatment plan for the patient, so “we must allow clinicians enough time to be careful in diagnosis, treatment planning and treatment review.”

“We must design our working spaces and information systems to maximize doctors' ability to see, understand, and deliberate on the information needed for more precise diagnosis,” concluded Dr Caldwell.

“We must urgently consider how to provide rooms, time, and information for doctors to do the most difficult part of their job and the part most prone to error: the clinical thinking in making the working diagnosis and treatment plan.”