History Main / InformedSelfDiagnosis

Most people, when they fall ill, will only describe their symptoms in general terms ("My stomach hurts", "[[CallingYourNausea I think I'm going to throw up]]", "AAA-CHOO!", etc.) This makes sense - most of us don't have much medical knowledge and can only use vague terms to talk about the complex things happening to us.

Not so when the patient is a doctor, however. They will give a full account of their condition, [[{{Expospeak}} with all the relevant jargon]], even if they're in the middle of collapsing. If they're already in hospital, they will probably be an AnnoyingPatient, particularly if the other doctors disagree - it's well known that doctors make the worst patients. Occasionally, it will be shown that the patient isn't ''actually'' sick, just that they're a {{Hypochondriac}} or simply a worrywart.

[[folder:Film]]
* In ''Film/TheXFilesFightTheFuture'', Scully is stung by a bee and has an immediate reaction. She goes down, describing how she feels -- even correcting Mulder when he suggests she's allergic.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'':
** The episode "Arsenal Of Freedom": after Dr. Crusher takes a nasty fall, Picard has to take care of her, and she has to tell him how to do it.
** During another episode where the entire crew is slowly vanishing and Beverly is the only one who notices, she performs a self-diagnostic, mentioning rather tersely that "being the only doctor on board, I had to do it myself."

* ''Series/{{Lost}}'' "Something Nice Back Home," with a twist. Jack knows he has appendicitis, but won't admit it until Juliet calls him on it, at which point he says his appendix hasn't ruptured yet.
* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'':
** Averted in an early episode when JD himself gets sick. He's diagnosed by the hospital personnel and seems overall intimidated by viewing the hospital from the patient's side. Of course, at this stage, he was just an intern starting out, so his opinion wouldn't be as informed as everyone else's anyway.
** Played with by having four older doctors all sharing a hospital room. JD is understandably intimidated, but they very kindly inform him of their condition and what's required. [[WithFriendsLikeThese Then prank him.]]
** Another episode features the "AnnoyingPatient" angle. Not only does the doctor in question diagnose himself, he brings along a lackey who automatically agrees with everything he says to try and legitimize his claims that the Sacred Heart doctors should just sign off on the drugs he's prescribed himself and let him go about his merrily arrogant way. [[SubvertedTrope Then subverted]] when he hires Elliot for his private practice precisely because she stood up to and disagreed with him (though it's implied he still went with his own diagnosis), because he has too many lackeys like the one he brought along.
** When the retired Dr. Kelso is admitted and makes sure to keep the interns assigned to treat him busy with nonsense work so he can carry on treating himself.

* Done in ''Series/DocMartin'' with the "gets it wrong" variant of this trope. Dr Dibbs self-diagnosis almost kills her before Martin manages to correct it. Martin's Aunt Ruth diagnoses herself with a terminal illness, listing all the symptoms, but thankfully Martin is on hand to point a couple of symptoms she's missed which means he has to break the [[SarcasmMode bad news that she is going to live]] as she has something totally different.
* Doctors dealing with [[Series/{{Frasier}} the Crane family]] have leant to dread having one as a patient, or even a relative of Niles or Frasier. The accepted procedure appears to be to humour a fellow medical professional[[note]]While making it clear that a psychiatrist is somebody with very little relevant recent experience in general medical work and in some respects is no better informed than a member of the public[[/note]] and then to ignore whatever they say and to do it your way anyway.
* ''Series/RizzoliAndIsles'': In "Dirty Little Secret," Maura is able to ascertain that her injured leg is developing compartment syndrome, and talks Jane through performing an emergency fasciotomy with a piece of glass from a broken cellphone screen.

* On ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'', Dr. Warner gets shot. As she, Olivia, and several others are being held captive by the insane woman who shot her, she has to guide Olivia through performing an emergency procedure on her while describing what the bullet has done to her body.

[[folder:Newspaper Comics]]
* In a ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'' comic, Catbert made Google the new company health plan, saying "from now on, employees must use Google to diagnose their own illnesses."
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Not so when the patient is a doctor, however. S/he will give a full account of their condition, [[{{Expospeak}} with all the relevant jargon]], even if they're in the middle of collapsing. If they're already in hospital, they will probably be an AnnoyingPatient, particularly if the other doctors disagree - it's well known that doctors make the worst patients. Occasionally, it will be shown that the patient isn't ''actually'' sick, just that they're a {{Hypochondriac}} or simply a worrywart.

Most people, when they fall ill, will only describe their symptoms in general terms ("My stomach hurts", "[[CallingYourNausea I think I'm going to throw up]]", "[[SneezeOfDoom AAA-CHOO!]]", etc.) This makes sense - most of us don't have much medical knowledge and can only use vague terms to talk about the complex things happening to us.

[[folder:Fan Fic]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV ]]

* Obviously, this happens on ''Series/{{House}}'' quite a bit.

** One episode with the pregnant photographer opens with her self-diagnosing a stroke as she's having a stroke. However, as seen below, this is an actual technique for self-diagnosing a stroke that anyone can (and should) learn.

* TruthInTelevision, both among physicians and other healthcare professionals. The trick is not to ''diagnose'' yourself while you're ''evaluating'' yourself. Telling your care team exactly what symptoms you're experiencing can be very helpful; insisting that you have X disease tends to have the opposite effect.
** This also tends to happen to anyone informed enough to think they have some form of Autism/Asperger's Syndrome, but naive enough to say as much ''before'' going to a professional. Combine one such socially-awkward individual with an often ill-informed medical staff who may not recognize all but the most obvious symptoms of Autism to begin with (or even be completely misinformed, such as thinking that only young boys have Autism), and things can get very ugly, very quickly.
** Self-diagnosing a stroke is considered good practice by most doctors. Since a stroke will almost always knock you out and there are very few, if any, external symptoms, having someone tell the paramedics or doctors that you had a stroke can save them a lot of time, and save your life. FAST is generally the easiest to remember: Face (half of your face just stops working, and it looks weird), Arms (you can't keep your arms level with each other), Speech (you slur your words as if drunk) and Time (it all happens very quickly).

** This also tends to happen to anyone informed enough to think they have some form of [[TheRainman Autism/Asperger's Syndrome]], but naive enough to say as much ''before'' going to a professional. Combine one such socially-awkward individual with an often ill-informed medical staff who may not recognize all but the most obvious symptoms of Autism to begin with (or even be completely misinformed, such as thinking that only young boys have Autism), and things can get very ugly, very quickly.

Most people, when they fall ill, will only describe their symptoms in general terms ("My stomach hurts", "I think I'm going to throw up", "[[SneezeOfDoom AAA-CHOO!]]", etc.) This makes sense - most of us don't have much medical knowledge and can only use vague terms to talk about the complex things happening to us.

* Dr Sheldon Hawkes of ''Series/{{CSINY}}'', having just been rescued from a nasty underwater incident, tells a paramedic he has "a full range of motion - probably just a hairline fracture".

* In ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' episode "Objects in Space", Simon is shot in the leg. Although he's the only medic on board, Zoe has some battlefield first aid experience. As a result, she has to perform surgery on Simon's leg while he stays conscious enough to talk her through the process.

** In "Three Stories", House prints a graph from his heart monitor, calls a nurse and tells her she has twenty seconds to inject him before he goes into tachycardia. He then crashes ''immediately'', with a surprised "I was wrong..."

** Also used in "The Greater Good", when a chef's apprentice collapses while reciting her symptoms in big medical words. Turns out she's a doctor.

* ''Series/RizzoliAndIsles'': In "Dirty Little Secret'', Maura is able to ascertain that her injured leg is developing compartment syndrome, and talks Jane through performing an emergency fasciotomy with a piece of glass from a broken cellphone screen.

** Played straight in season six's "Fade Out, Fade In", in which one of the wounded is a doctor who keeps doing this and telling the surgeons not to bother with him.

Most people, when they fall ill, will only describe their symptoms in general terms ("My stomach hurts", "I think I'm going to throw up", "[[SneezeOfDoom AAA-CHOO!]]" etc.) This makes sense - most of us don't have much medical knowledge and can only use vague terms to talk about the complex things happening to us.

** During another episode where the entire crew is slowly vanishing and Beverly is the only one who notices, she performs a self diagnostic, mentioning rather tersely that "being the only doctor on board, I had to do it myself."

** Averted in an early episode when JD himself gets sick. He's diagnosed by the hospital personel and seems overall intimidated by viewing the hospital from the patient's side. Of course, at this stage, he was just an intern starting out, so his opinion wouldn't be as informed as everyone else's anyway.

** Another episode features the "AnnoyingPatient" angle. Not only does the doctor in question diagnose himself, he brings along a lackey who automatically agrees with everything he says to try and legitimize his claims that the Sacred Heart doctors should just sign off on the drugs he's prescribed himself and let him go about his merrily arrogant way. [[SubvertedTrope Then subverted]] when he hires Elliot for his private practice precisely because she stood up to and disagreed with him (though its implied he still went with his own diagnosis), because he has too many lackeys like the one he brought along.

** In "Three Stories" House prints a graph from his heart monitor, calls a nurse and tells her she has twenty seconds to inject him before he goes into tachycardia. He then crashes ''immediately'', with a surprised "I was wrong..."

** In the episode "Epic Fail", a videogame programmer, who complains that his hands felt like they were on fire, uses online resources to self-diagnose himself, which alienates the doctors of Princeton-Plainsboro. However, they soon prove his self-diagnosis wrong. Instead of doing the logical thing and letting THEM help, he keeps trying to self-diagnose and, eventually, get help from doctors outside the hospital. Near the end of the episode he offers a $25k prize for the doctor who solves his case, which he posted online. In an (at first) ironic twist, one of the online doctors DOES solve the case and gets the money. But at the end of the episode, it's revealed that [[spoiler: House, who had previously resigned and not even looked at the patient once, was the one who solved the case and got the money, which helps convince him that he needs to keep working at the hospital.]]

* Alan Alda, hilariously. He reveals in his memoirs that he had intestinal problems while visiting in Chile, and the doctor tried to explain to him what was happening. Alda crisply explained that he knew what was going on and what the treatment was. The young doctor was dumbfounded, and wondered how Alda could possibly know that. Alda explains that he isn't a doctor, [[ButIPlayOneOnTV but he played one on M*A*S*H.]] {{Beat}}. The Chilean doctor cracks up, and Alda reflects that he's lying in agonizing pain and still making people laugh ''without even trying.''

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[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

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[[folder: Real Life ]]

Not so when the patient is a doctor, however. S/he will give a full account of their condition, [[{{Expospeak}} with all the relevant jargon]], even if they're in the middle of collapsing. If they're already in hospital, they will probably be an AnnoyingPatient, particularly if the other doctors disagree - it's well known that doctors make the worst patients.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Arsenal Of Freedom": after Dr. Crusher takes a nasty fall, Picard has to take care of her, and she has to tell him how to do it.

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* ''Series/{{Sherlock}}'' has a non-doctor example- the titular InsufferableGenius diagnoses himself [[spoiler: ''after being shot in the chest'' by Watson's fiancé Mary. He mentally plays out both evaluating his condition and being advised by mental representations of people he knows- mainly his smug brother Mycroft- to determine that the bullet is still in his body (because it didn't shatter the mirror behind him) and which direction he should fall down in to increase his chances of survival, as well as forcing himself to think of a happy memory (his dog from his childhood) for the same reason.]] This takes about 5 minutes on-screen but in-universe he mentally goes through all of this in about a second. [[spoiler:He later points out that had Mary truly wanted to kill him, she was good enough to make a kill-shot, and it's possible he thought of that at the time of being shot too.]]

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* Dr. Maturin, in the AubreyMaturin series, himself falls prey to a wide variety of injuries and ailments over the course of the series. His self-diagnoses are almost always on the mark, too, though he notably fails to recognize his own addiction to the (opium-based) alcoholic tincture of laudanum.