Center for Global Health Policy’s “Science Speaks”: ‘Test and treat’ is the ideal — but ‘guess and treat’ is the more common reality
Rabita Aziz, staff writer for “Science Speaks” and policy research coordinator for the Center for Global Health Policy, discusses the diagnostic practices of clinicians in many low- and middle-income countries, writing, “For diagnostic products to have impact and lead to patients being placed on appropriate treatment, clinicians must change the way they approach diagnosis and treatment, and patients must change their expectations … But in resource-limited settings, sometimes health care workers have no choice but to guess and treat” (6/27).