From: Iain <iain@mst.co.jp>
To: josh@agliodbs.com
To: Karsten Hilbert <Karsten.Hilbert@gmx.net>
To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: surrogate key or not?
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2004 19:38:51 +0900
Message-ID: <002801c472fc$be62af40$7201a8c0@mst1x5r347kymb> (raw)
References: <1090325769.3241.27.camel@dicaprio.akademie1.de>
<200407221005.59482.josh@agliodbs.com>
<20040723085721.C728@hermes.hilbert.loc>
<200407231020.59843.josh@agliodbs.com>
> > Because there is no information to be had on this fact. The
> > patient IS afflicted by such or she is not. There is no why.
>
> I begin to see why I spent $2000 this spring to have a doctor tell me what
I
> *didn't* have ...
This reminds me of a project I worked on many years ago, I was pretty much
fresh out of university writing a system for a large medical practice -
itwas principally for accounting purposes. I made lots of suggestions like
Josh's, only to get replies like Karsten's. I the progammer wanted to codify
everything so as to enable data analysis (ie linking complaints and
diagnosis, etc) but the doctors wern't interested. They just wanted to write
free text comments. And the reason for it (as far as I can tell) is the
distinction between general practice and reseach (such as epidemiology). So
(GPs) are not so much searching for new knowlege in their patients records,
as applying the knowlege gained from research (done by researchers) to treat
individual patients.
Karsten might beg to differ, I don't know, but the "long flaky text" comment
triggered some old (and fond) memories ;-)
Cheers
iain
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Reply to all the recipients using the --to and --cc options:
reply via email
To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Cc: iain@mst.co.jp, josh@agliodbs.com, Karsten.Hilbert@gmx.net
Subject: Re: surrogate key or not?
In-Reply-To: <002801c472fc$be62af40$7201a8c0@mst1x5r347kymb>
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
This inbox is served by DDX for PostgreSQL; see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox