Diagnostic Reasoning
Studying diagnostic reasoning helps us understand how clinicians suspect cancer and what support they need to diagnose cancer.
Diagnostic reasoning is the thinking process that clinicians use to work out what is causing their patient’s symptoms. We study the ways that clinicians think about their patients’ symptoms when they clearly suggest cancer and when cancer is harder to suspect. We do this by speaking to clinicians about how they think, make decisions, and follow-up with patients. We analyse the effect diagnostic reasoning has on the time it takes for a patient to get their diagnosis. We speak to patients about how they would prefer their doctor or nurse to communicate about cancer. We work with other groups in the university, like Medical Sociology and Health Experiences Research Group, to investigate Diagnostic Reasoning.
