Demographic information about a specific subset of patients can help physicians recognize conditions they do not expect to find in the larger population.
The WHO Clinical Staging System for HIV/AIDS allows physicians in resource-limited settings to make clinical decisions based on patient clinical features instead of laboratory tests.
With good planning and good will, medical professionals’ right of conscience and patients’ rights to controversial services can be both protected and accommodated.
Clinical decision making calls for use of both explicit and tacit knowledge despite evidence-based medicine's assumption that explicit information is sufficient.