Diagnoses

Different kind of diagnoses in medicine. Doctors decide by first considering all the possibilities indicated by the symptoms: that's the differential diagnosis. Chills and fever suggest many things, so the doctor comes up with a short list of diseases, and eliminates them one by one until only one remains: that's the working diagnosis. The unpleasant part of dealing with biology whether in lab or in clinical setting is that often there is no 100% certainty, hence the working diagnosis is the physician's best conclusion at a given moment. Combined with unambiguous lab results we get the definitive diagnosis, which zeros in on the culprit.