Summary |
Philosophers of medicine have sought to explain and analyse the reasoning processes involved in diagnosis and the status of diagnostic criteria. Recent work has examined how advances in medical technologies – ranging from increasingly sophisticated imaging to computational techniques relying on machine learning and data-mining – can increase accuracy and enable earlier diagnosis, but also change diagnostic criteria or their interpretation, and potentially even alter medical concepts. Bioethicists and medical humanities disciplines offer social and ethical analyses of the diagnostic process including potential for (harmful or beneficial) medicalisation and labelling. |