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The Doctor's World; Occupational Ills: How Accurately Diagnosed

Published in the 80's but still timely...

A MAJOR weakness of the American health care system is the lack of sufficient attention to occupationally related diseases, though health leaders have now begun to take important steps to help improve the situation.

Although occupationally related diseases can have implications for the whole community, reaching far beyond the patient and his or her physician, doctors have a primary responsibility for identifying them because they are usually best situated to ask the crucial questions that can link an ailment to the workplace.

Yet all too often doctors omit these questions when they probe the medical history. And patients…

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