ABSTRACT
The compound term Clinical Surveillance is self-evident by the combination of the terms: the intent is to provide a close and continuous watch over a patient in a clinical setting. The terms together imply a close watch—a continuous watch—over all aspects of the subject patient. The term surveillance has been applied in other domains to imply the same close watch, based on the available information on the subject and the environment in which the subject is active. Yet, patients are not robots and do not obey absolute guidelines or behaviors in terms of their physiological responses. Those individuals reading this who are licensed clinicians may understand this and also recognize that while patients can present with gross symptoms that are consistent with known diagnoses, variations can exist that either make such diagnoses difficult at first, or make the diagnoses obvious, again, depending on patient presentation.
