TY - JOUR T1 - Editor's Briefing JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 451 LP - 451 DO - 10.3399/bjgp12X653787 VL - 62 IS - 602 AU - Roger Jones Y1 - 2012/09/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/62/602/451.abstract N2 - Unsurprisingly, patients’ priorities for medical care are centred on diagnosis; doctors are expected to listen properly, do a physical examination, and find out and tell the patient what is wrong. Aneurin Bevan expressed this view forcibly during a debate about community hospitals: ‘I would rather be kept alive in the efficient if cold altruism of a large hospital than expire in a gush of warm sympathy in a small one’. The days of wallowing in uncertainty, and perversely making a virtue out of tolerating it, are over, and first-contact clinicians have a duty of care that includes making early, accurate diagnoses as often as possible. The challenges of doing so are captured in a series of papers in this issue of the BJGP, and deftly explored in Kevin Barraclough’s editorial. We clearly aren’t there yet, and Barraclough makes a plea for more research into diagnostic decision making and the use of investigative technologies, arguing that the funding available … ER -