Hickam's dictum explained

Hickam's dictum is a counterargument to the use of Occam's razor in the medical profession.[1] While Occam's razor suggests that the simplest explanation is the most likely, implying in medicine that diagnosticians should assume a single cause for multiple symptoms, one form of Hickam's dictum states: "A man can have as many diseases as he damn well pleases."[2] The principle is attributed to an apocryphal physician named Hickam,[2] possibly John Bamber Hickam, MD.[3] When he began saying this is uncertain. In 1946, he was a housestaff member in medicine at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. Hickam was a faculty member at Duke University in the 1950s, and was later chairman of medicine at Indiana University from 1958 to 1970.[4]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Clinical Vignettes: Hickam's Dictum versus Occam's Razor: A Case for Occam . W. Bradley . Fields . Society of Hospital Medicine . https://web.archive.org/web/20070319000732/http://www.hospitalmedicine.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=5342#Clinical_Vignettes . 2007-03-19 .
  2. Letter from the editor: Occam versus Hickam . an apocryphal physician named Hickam . 10.1016/S0037-198X(98)80001-1 . 1998 . Miller . Wallace T. . Seminars in Roentgenology . 33 . 3 . 213 .
  3. Mani . Navin . Slevin . Nick . Hudson . Andrew . What Three Wise Men have to say about diagnosis . The BMJ . 20 December 2011 . 343 . 2 . 10.1136/bmj.d7769 . 22187188 . 20673955 .
  4. Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology . September 2002 . 22 . 3 . Noble J. David, MD, Reminisces . 10.1097/00041327-200209000-00009 . 12352589 . David . N. J. . 240–246 .

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