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Working Diagnosis
Once we finalize a differential diagnosis, the top contender becomes the working diagnosis or diagnostic hypothesis. If the working diagnosis is relatively certain, we may go ahead and prescribe specific therapy. ("It looks like an ear infection. Here are some antibiotics.") If the diagnosis is less definite, we will obtain additional information (history, physical exam, lab, xray, etc.) to test the hypothesis. ("It looks like strep throat, but I'd like to do a culture before treating you with antibiotics.") We may revise the working diagnosis based on this new data and repeat the cycle as many times as needed (hypothetico-deductive reasoning).