While board members might not use the term, they often describe the symptoms.

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Sitting agog we listened to her describe my symptoms: heartburn, nausea, discomfort, anxiety.

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Patients fill out forms on a tablet PC (using a mouse was throwing them off) by selecting visuals to describe their symptoms, with the aim of speeding up the process.

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How would you describe your symptoms?

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Doctors have to get patients to list their symptoms, describe their behaviour, make a diagnosis and work out whether the root of the problem is at work, home, or in something as vague as fear of crime, all within ten minutes, says Mary Church, a Lanarkshire doctor.

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However, the rapidly advancing field of psychiatric genetics is trying to describe these disorders on the basis of what is causing them, rather simply by symptoms.

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