13 Diagnosis: industry’s royal road to manipulate modern medicine

Abstract

Having been a practicing child psychiatrist for the last forty years, I want to talk about the pervasive use of the term diagnosis in modern medicine and how this term is being used ANS misused by the industry, and by US, in a way that harms our very patients. The argument will sit on the details of two examples: one from classical medicine, the hyperactive bladder, the other from child psychiatry, the attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity diagnosis. It will be proposed that many a definition of the term diagnosis are acceptable, and that we have no time to loose fighting for definitions. What we are interested in are the clinical realities themselves we want to talk about using the terms we use. In order to fight back the unfortunate and harmful consequences of the use of the term diagnosis in modern medicine, the author will explain how, since a number of years, he used a definition of this term which clarifies up to a useful point for a great number of patients and their parents, what a valid medical diagnosis should be. Acknowledging the major difficulties of our fighting back for this term to mean valid medical problems instead, as too often nowdays, diagnostic-like entities created by businessmen at the service of the industry, the author would welcome the opportunity to discuss with other clinicians about their ways to deal with this problem, hoping thereby to improve his own way of doing it. Objectives The objective of the presentation is to stimulate a critical approach to the daily used term diagnosis in the activities of our occidental healthcare systems. Following this presentation it is hoped the participants will ask themselves a number of questions before accepting a proposed diagnosis as a valid medical diagnosis. Method This is no research but the reflexions of a clinician on how to deal with the clinical problem created by how the term diagnosis is currently used in our corporate world. Results No quantifiable results. The results are the ones of a clinical experience dealing with the problems created for our patients with what we call valid medical diagnosis in our societies. Conclusions The author will discuss the benefits of his dealing with the term diagnosis in his clinical pratice.