Corazonadas en Medicina de Familia (Gut feelings in general practice)

Tuesday, October 29th, 2024
Key points:
The characteristics of Primary Health Care make it necessary to know and use the different reasoning and decision-making systems in a dynamic way.
Family physicians have two types of gut feelings: alarm and reassurance.
Family physicians often have gut feelings in their practice and tend to act accordingly, asking for more tests and information in case of a sense of alarm.
Gut feelings have to do with prognosis, with the feeling that something serious is going to happen or not, not with the exact diagnosis.
Gut feelings significantly increase the likelihood of a future serious diagnosis.
Friendly learning and working environments and an observant and reflective attitude may favour the emergence of more accurate gut feelings.
Author Bernardino Oliva-Fanlo