5. How to Solve a Medical Mystery

Freakonomics, M.D.

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Society & Culture, Science

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2021

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A woman comes to the emergency room with back pain. She’ll leave with an unexpected diagnosis. How does her doctor figure out what’s wrong? Listen as host Bapu Jena puts master clinician Dr. Gurpreet Dhaliwal on the spot to solve a real medical mystery. Along the way, you’ll learn how doctors think and the most important questions they ask.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What day does fever start? Wednesday.
0:04.9	If you've ever watched a medical drama on TV, you're used to hearing things like this.
0:09.5	We're already at 10.
0:10.5	What's day 10?
0:11.5	Do Barbara have red eyes?
0:12.5	He was asleep the last time her checks go.
0:15.5	Lots of fast-talking, scribbling a bunch of diseases on a whiteboard and dramatically
0:20.3	crossing them out, punching over petri dishes in a lab doing tests.
0:25.2	And of course, let's not forget, breaking into a patient's house to find out what's
0:29.3	poison them.
0:36.8	On these medical shows, which I got to admit, even I love to watch, they always manage
0:41.3	to make the cliffhanger come right before the commercial break.
0:45.6	And of course, they solve the case just before the episode is over.
0:49.2	It all looks very exciting, and as someone who's also a doctor, maybe a little too good
0:54.1	to be true.
0:55.3	Well, what if I told you that today, we were going to put the diagnostic skills of a real
1:00.2	doctor, a guy who you could reasonably call the real life, but much more functional and
1:06.1	friendly Dr. House under the microscope.
1:08.9	No, we don't break into people's houses like on House MBE to find that pet or that toxin
1:15.1	that's sitting in there.
1:16.5	But there's a lot of thinking that goes on outside the exam room.
1:20.4	That's Dr. Garpreet Daliwal.
	...

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