HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS REGISTER		Author Keyword(s) Vol Page [Advanced]

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this link to a friend Similar articles in this journal Add article to my folders Download to citation manager Request Permissions Google Scholar Articles by Warlow, C. PubMed Articles by Warlow, C.

Editor’s choice

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

"Patients should not be all that interested in their diagnosis—discuss". This would have been a nice written exam question in the (good) old days before the invention of the pernicious MCQs (Multiple Choice Questions) and the ever so boring OSCEs (Observed Structured Clinical Examinations). Why? Because the reflective (politically correct fashionable word for thoughtful) medical student and doctor realise that what patients really, really want to know is "what is going to happen next?" and then "what are you going to do about it?" In other words, prognosis and treatment. However clever the neurologist may feel in making the diagnosis (and some feel far too clever with or without justification), the "diagnosis" itself has not much meaning except in so far as it carries a threat of future catastrophe (for example, you have a had a mini-stroke and might have another which could carry you off) or not (for example, . . . [Full text of this article]