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Successful doctors diagnoses

Introduction

Successful doctors have been dealing with patients since many years. Patients tend to refer to doctors who have been practicing since long and who have been the chosen doctors of other people as well. A doctor who has been fortunately successful over many years in diagnosing and treating diseases may develop a feeling of pride in him. This leads to over confidence in a doctor. An over confident doctor can cause major trouble for the patient.

A question that may arise is that over confidence in which sense? This is pretty simple. A doctor deals with many patients a day. Out of them more than half of the patients show the same signs and symptoms of a particular disease. The doctor evidently will treat them accordingly. If however, a patient then appears with not exactly but almost with the same sign and symptoms, the doctor would readily declare his disease to be the same as that of others and start treating him accordingly. This mishap only occurs when a doctor has been dealing with patients successfully and the patients become pretty content with his treatment. He thinks since he has flourished with many patients he would eventually be victorious in curing the other patient's disease too.

Over-diagnosis of Bi-polar Disorder

Bi-polar disorder is in simple words manic depression. It is characterized by short span or attacks of depression or mania. Patients face massive mood swings between extreme excitement or exhilaration and severe depression (Yatham, pp. 45-135). Hallucinations or delusions may also be faced by many patients suffering from Bi-polar Disorder. Patients with anxiety, agitation, restlessness and irritability that do not persist are sometimes incorrectly diagnosed with Bi-polar disorder. These could be the symptoms of Bi-polar but they have to be accompanied by other signs as well. These signs include feeling energetic despite just a few hours of sleep, hyperactivity or inflated self esteem etc. One of the major reasons why such symptoms are being misdiagnosed as Bi-polar is because a lot has been written about it being under-diagnosed.

The increased availability of medication s for the treatment of Bi-polar disorder may also play a part in over-diagnosing this disorder. Many physicians tend to diagnose something in which they feel pretty comfortable in treating (Castle, pp. 45-69). If treatment of a disease or a disorder is simple and straight, the physicians tend to declare that disorder in a patient even if he shows half of the symptoms of that disease or disorder.

Misdiagnosis of Bi-polar disease is spreading at a fast pace. A study at Rhode Island Hospital showed 700 patients to be diagnosed with Bi-polar Disorder whereas about half of the 700 should not have been diagnosed with this disorder.

Over-diagnosis of Autism

Autism is a devastating condition both for those who have it and for his parents. It is another disorder which is misdiagnosed or over-diagnosed. One of the common reasons of over-diagnosis of Autism is due to self diagnosis by lay people themselves. Autism is a disorder in which early aging ...