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Alexander Kiderman, MD; Guy Marciano, BSc; Tali Bdolah-Abram, MA; Mayer Brezis, MD, MPH

Arch Intern Med. 2009;169(5):524-525.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Clinical context may lead to bias in findings on physical examination.^1-2 To assess whether the patient's history might distort the perception of physical findings and subsequent management decisions in pharyngitis, simulated patients visited general clinics attended by 32 practitioners.

Methods

The clinicians received advanced notice from the district management about a quality-control survey that was to take place, without details about its exact nature. Each physician was visited twice (at a 1-month interval) by a simulated patient presenting with the following scripts:

• Script 1 ("viral"), for which the complaint was "Since yesterday I have had a headache, fever (around 40°C), sweating, and chills. For several days, I have had a cough and a runny nose. This morning, I felt discomfort in my throat, hoarseness, generalized weakness, and muscle pains, and I took paracetamol."
  
• Script 2 ("bacterial"), for which . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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