The computer as a diagnostic tool in medicine

Diagnosis is not a discrete or limited process, but one which is always operative in the physician-patient encounter. It is neither possible nor desirable fully to computerize or automate this process, even in restricted areas. But it is possible and desirable to set up a computer-assisted diagnostic network with which the physician and the patient can both interact. Such a system would educate patients, and allow them to monitor their own care. It is only possible when informed consent in diagnosis becomes the accepted rule. This is a shortened version of a paper included in C. Mitcham and Alois Huning, eds., Philosophy and Technology II: Information Technology and Computers in Theory and Practice (Boston: D. Reidel, in press), and is included here with permission.