Practicing Medicine in Autism's Diagnostic Gray Zone

By Lisa Shulman, M.D. When I was much younger and trying to decide what to do with my life, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. That changed the day my high school civics class held a mock trial and I was selected as the "prosecutor." Almost immediately, I discovered I didn't have the makeup to be a lawyer. If you gave me a good argument on one side that I staunchly believed in, I was ready to make a case. But it didn't take much to change my mind when I heard a good argument for the opposing point of view. So I decided I wanted to pursue something more "black and white"--such as medicine. I reasoned that either you had strep throat or you didn't. Either you had cancer, or congenital heart disease, or you didn't. That was the paradigm that I was most comfortable with. Making medical judgment calls Fast-forward 25 years. Given this early revelation about lawyering, how did I end up as an autism expert? Unlike doctors treating strep throat, confirmed by a throat culture, or heart disease, clearly evident on an echocardiogram, I decided to spend my days evaluating children for a condition that has no blood test, MRI finding or any other objective measure to help me make or dispel the diagnosis. Rather, it is based on a behavioral constellation--essentially, a judgment call about whether a child meets a behavioral definition. Remember, I'm the wishy-washy one who changes opinions based on the strength of arguments offered by one side or the other. Today my life is filled with...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news