[realpatriot71]

Trust me on this one, if we've got to rely on neurologists to diagnose this, we could be in big trouble. Doctors are going to have to think "outside the box" in order to diagnose this.

In defense of the docs, you spend all day long dealing with "horses" so I wouldn't be too hard on them when they don't immediately notice the "zebras" that show up very rarely. The body of knowledge within even a sub-specialty is so great that no one single human being can have cognitive access to it at a single moment. Sometimes a take a while and a bit of work to show alternatives as rational a differential diagnosis.

[Nebullis]

In defense of the docs, you spend all day long dealing with "horses" so I wouldn't be too hard on them when they don't immediately notice the "zebras" that show up very rarely.

Differentials are all about probabilities, true. But in this case, it's well known that horses show paralysis from WNV.

[Paladin2]

If this diagnosis issue in some/many cases can be so complex that many/any individual doc's can't sort it out (and I believe that this could easily be the case), why are expert systems not developed, widely distributed, and consulted on a regular basis?