Table 1.

Central Issues in Clinical Work, Where Clinical Questions Arise.

1.Clinical Findings: how to properly gather and interpret findings from the history and physical examination. 2.Etiology/Risk: how to identify causes or risk factors for disease (including iatrogenic harms). 3.Clinical Manifestations of Disease: knowing how often and when a disease causes its clinical manifestations and how to use this knowledge in classifying our patient's illnesses. 4.Differential Diagnosis: when considering the possible causes of our patients' clinical problems, how to select those that are likely, serious, and responsive to treatment. 5.Diagnostic Tests: how to select and interpret diagnostic tests, in order to confirm or exclude a diagnosis, based on considering their precision, accuracy, acceptability, safety, expense, etc. 6.Prognosis: how to estimate our patients' interventions (?) that do more good than harm and that are worth the efforts and costs of using them. 7.Prevention: how to reduce the chance of disease by identifying and modifying risk factors and how to diagnose disease early by screening. 8.Experience and Meaning: how to empathize with our patients' situations, appreciate the meaning they find in the experience, and understand how this meaning influences their healing. 9.Improvement: how to keep up‐to‐date, improve our clinical and other skills, and run a better, more efficient clinical care system.

Taken from: Straus SE, Glasziou P, Richardson WS, Haynes RB. Evidence‐Based medicine: How to Practice and Teach it. 4^th ed. New York, NY: Churchill Livingstone; 2011 page 18. With permission.