| when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras | не стоит искать чего-то сверхъестественного вместо вероятной и очевидной причины (An outlandish or unlikely diagnosis. A medical school aphorism holds, "If you're walking down Fifth Avenue and you hear hoofbeats, you think of horses, not zebras", meaning that a common diagnosis is more likely to be correct than a rare one: An adolescent female patient presents with a three-week history of headache, fatigue, and intermittent fevers but was historically healthy. The physical exam was unremarkable and aside from the occasional fevers, the only symptom of note was that she was pale in color. The zebra could have been meningitis or a brain tumor — and the inexperienced practitioner would order thousands of dollars of tests and subject the patient to multiple procedures. But a routine blood count showed that she was simply anemic — the horse — and just needed extra iron. The rule: Think horse without ruling out zebras. Elena_afina) |
