ABSTRACT
Diagnosis is the health professional’s term for the beginnings of trajectory work. To do anything effective, other than just treat symptoms, the illness has to be identified. The difference between the patient and the physician is that the latter has more experience both in diagnostic search and in judging the reliability of his diagnostic means. In urban centers today, physicians may need to be very careful in assessing that reliability, since clinical laboratories, X-ray centers, and the like may vary in the quality of their work. Trajectory management is relatively routine for courses of illness that turn out to be relatively standard that they are all well-known and the physician and staff members have had much experience with them. Comfort care is important but subordinate to survival tasks. Psychological care is also subordinate but somewhat visible in and around the more medical tasks.
