Article Index

In an effort to improve medical efficiency

In an effort to improve medical efficiency, many physicians now run between multiple examining rooms, see patients between 6-8 minutes, and whether conscious of it or not, limit patient questions and dispense with time-consuming, proven patho-physiological diagnosis.

It takes too much time to counsel patients rather than prescribe a pill. Some physicians have limited the number of complicated patients and/or decreased procedural referrals such as EEG, Brain SPECT, transcranial doppler, tilt table test, CAT scan and MRI testing.

Many physicians use templates in their notes such as SOAP― S. subjective: history of present illness; O. objective: prior diagnosis, new examination; A: assessment: diagnosis; P. plan: tests, referral, advice or treat. As Dr. Hyde pointed out, this is part of the educated-guess diagnosis.

In the 1890’s, another Canadian, Dr. William Osler, became the chief of John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD. Osler’s technique was to find the cause of the illness and then treat it specifically, which was regarded as being revolutionary at that time.

Doctors to this day rarely look for the causes of illness. Dr. Hyde emphasized that he himself has never had ME/CFS patients with only one thing wrong with them; instead, patients can have 10 to 20 underlying problems.