Everyday is a school day. Came across a post today and found a term that is just too good: diagnostic overshadowing. Reminds me of what my momma use to tell me: assuming just makes an *** out of you and me. (Here is that post)
Diagnostic overshadowing means assuming a symptom or set of symptoms is assumed to be caused by a known diagnosis without consideration of other possible factors.
In the world of hearing loss healthcare, diagnostic overshadowing could look like be not digging deeper on someone’s tinnitus because they have hearing loss or not digging deeper on difficulty in noise because of hearing loss. Or hearing aids need to be replaced because they are old without running electroacoustic analysis on them. Or even a physician not referring for a hearing evaluation because hearing complaints are expected with aging. What a useful term!
Found this on pub med reviewing this term as well.
I take this finding as a great reminder to dig deep and use your best critical thinking skills!