Hickam's dictum
Hickam's dictum is a medical principle that a patient's symptoms could be caused by several diseases. It is a counterargument to applying Occam's razor in the medical profession.[1] A common version of Hickam's dictum states: "A man can have as many diseases as he damn well pleases."[2] The principle is attributed to an apocryphal physician named Hickam,[2] possibly John Bamber Hickam, MD.[3] When he began saying this is uncertain.
Occam's razor suggests that the simplest explanation is the most likely. Applying this in health care, it purports that diagnosticians should assume a single cause for multiple symptoms. Hickam's dictum admits multiple causes can produce the result confronting the diagnostician.
John Hickam, MD
[edit]In 1946, John Bamber Hickam was a housestaff member in medicine at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Later, in the 1950s, he was a faculty member at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He subsequently was chairman of medicine at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana from 1958 to 1970.[4]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Fields, W. Bradley. "Clinical Vignettes: Hickam's Dictum versus Occam's Razor: A Case for Occam". hospitalmedicine.org. Society of Hospital Medicine. Archived from the original on 2007-03-19.
- ^ a b Miller, Wallace T. (1998). "Letter from the editor: Occam versus Hickam". Seminars in Roentgenology. 33 (3): 213. doi:10.1016/S0037-198X(98)80001-1.
an apocryphal physician named Hickam
- ^ Mani, Navin; Slevin, Nick; Hudson, Andrew (20 December 2011). "What Three Wise Men have to say about diagnosis". British Medical Journal. 343: 2. doi:10.1136/bmj.d7769. PMID 22187188. S2CID 20673955.
- ^ David, N. J. (September 2002). "Noble J. David, MD, Reminisces". Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology. 22 (3): 240–246. doi:10.1097/00041327-200209000-00009. PMID 12352589.
