Contemplating thinking about thinking

Abstract

Despite the increasing move to community care, general practitioners sensing that the traditional gatekeeper role is being eroded by other pre-hospital and community health professionals, assailed by private organisations and now even under threat from the acute sector have staked their claim to the central ground of providing interpersonal care, dealing with uncertainty and managing diagnostic complexity. As every general practitioner and ‘House’aficionado knows,diagnosis has always been the most challenging, interesting and difficult aspect of our work,presenting, as it does, many pitfalls and much potential for error