Clinical decision making calls for use of both explicit and tacit knowledge despite evidence-based medicine's assumption that explicit information is sufficient.
There are nonpharmacological approaches to managing behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia and the difficulties associated with evaluating and implementing these approaches.
The physical exam aids differential diagnosis and is unlikely to be replaced by new technology. It is important in resource-poor settings and in the litigious U.S., and it fosters a trusting and therapeutic patient-doctor relationship.
Physicians can help reduce the large number of patients who do not take their prescription drugs due to the high cost by proactively discussing the topic of drug costs during the clinical encounter and developing a plan for assistance.
Variations among physicians in diagnosis and X-ray interpretation, the percentages of which have remained essentially unchanged for five decades, raise serious ethical concerns.