Diagnostic Reasoning in General Internal Medicine Consultations: A Text Mining Analysis of Consultation Requests
Ren Kawamura, Yukinori Harada, Taro Shimizu · 2026
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Description
When one doctor consults another, the written request is a fossil of bedside reasoning, and fossils can be mined. Ren Kawamura, Yukinori Harada, and Taro Shimizu mine 352 consultation requests to a Japanese diagnostic medicine department in a 2026 study. Consultations were graded appropriate when the first specialty consulted reached the correct final diagnosis.
Text mining mapped which words traveled together in each group. Appropriate requests leaned on terms marking clear abnormalities and disease progression. Inappropriate ones clustered around different language, vaguer about trajectory. Two hundred twenty-nine requests were judged appropriate and 123 inappropriate. The authors suggest the wording of a request itself could flag consultations headed for the wrong door, and teach better asking.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Ren Kawamura, Yukinori Harada, Taro Shimizu |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 36 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |