Doctors, patients, investigators, administrators, and policymakers who assign diagnoses assume three elements: the name describes an entity with conceptual or evidentiary boundaries, the person setting the name has a high degree of certainty, and the name has a consensus definition. This book challenges this practice and offers an alternative to assigning diagnoses: quantitating diagnostic uncertainty in personal and public medical plans.

This book offers the stakeholders views participating in a workshop, sponsored by the Barbara Volcker Center/Hospital for Special Surgery, taking place in April 2020, about uncertain diagnoses. Chapters examine the circumstances in which diagnosis names are unassignable , either because patients do not fit within diagnostic boxes or because health abnormalities evolve and change over time.