Abstract
Sadegh-zadeh [23] has proposed a theory of the relativity of medical diagnosis in terms of the time at which a diagnosis is accepted, the patient to whom the diagnosis applies, the physician who renders the diagnosis, the medical knowledge used, the diagnostic method applied, and the set of patient observations. Use of classical formal logic as the ‘diagnostic method’ may result in three paradoxes: the paradoxes of consistency, completeness, and justifiable ignorance. These paradoxes may be resolved by the addition of two non-classical operators, the ‘certainty’ and ‘effort’ operators, akin to the non-classical operators of modal logic.
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Dedicated to the memory of the late Prof. Dr. med. Walter Sandritter, Freiburg.
Supported by NIH Grant LM-03651 from the National Library of Medicine and NIH Grant HL-22963 from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, U.S.A.
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Moore, G.W., Hutchins, G.M. Three paradoxes of medical diagnosis. Metamedicine 2, 197–215 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00884423
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00884423