diagnosticand
Diagnosticand is a term used in discussions of diagnostic reasoning to denote the entity whose condition is being assessed. It refers to the object of diagnosis—the patient, specimen, device, or problem—whose state is to be determined. The diagnosticand is distinguished from the diagnostician and from the diagnostic tools used to reach a conclusion.
In medicine, the diagnosticand is typically the patient, whose symptoms, history, and test results are interpreted
Diagnosis proceeds by gathering data about the diagnosticand, formulating hypotheses about its possible states, and testing
Because the term is not widely used in everyday practice, some writers prefer simpler labels such as
See also: diagnosis, differential diagnosis, diagnostic reasoning, diagnostic test, patient.