The methodology of computerized medical case study: Introduction

Abstract

One of the great pleasures for me in becoming involved in the research which has led up to today's meet ing has been getting to know so many delightful people , f rom other countries, America , Europe--even Scotland! It is a great pleasure to have such a good number of European and Amer ican friends and colleagues here today, as well as such a strong 'home team' . I thought I might try to say 'good morning ' in all the eight languages represented here (if you include Scottish and American) but my courage failed me. We are profoundly grateful that you all speak English so well. May I welcome you all most warmly to this bastion of medical eccentricity; on behalf of the hospital staff, who are represented here by Dr Peter Fisher who will be my co-host for the weekend; and on behalf of the Faculty of Homeeopathy, which is the academic organization for doctors studying homceopathic medicine, based here. In fact eccentricity is thought by some to be too mild a word for our activities. In a television discussion Dr Jonathan Miller described the pretensions of homceopathic medicine as 'blasphemy' , so perhaps I should say welcome to this bastion of medical heresy. Be that as it may, you are warmly welcome to what many of us hope and expect to be an exciting seminar. I will begin, however, with a quotat ion guaranteed to put us all in our place and cut us down to size: ' . . . some individuals try and hide behind that modern shield of incompetence, the computer! However , trying to use computer technology . . . will not help to remove their basic drawbacks. How can an automatic office machine based on binary responses, with a data input that is at best uncertain, be used for diagnostic purposes with biological phenomena that do not correspond to mathematical laws?' Well, needless to say I don ' t quite see it that way, but it may not be a bad idea to remind ourselves from the start that the chief justification for our efforts is that doctors and other practit ioners should be better able to practice their science and their art, and that their patients should be bet ter cared for as a result. Let me give you a simple example of what I believe we are here for this weekend. This patient (Figures 1 and 2) suffers from