Christian Heath Research note Computer-aided diagnosis in the consultation Introduction' In recent years there has been a growing interest within primary health care in the use of computers to assist medical work. The possible implications of developments in micro technology to this field are enormous, ranging from the computerisation of medical record cards and treatment programmes to the elicitation of medical histories from patients by computers. One particular system which has already been tried within other medical settings is computer aided diagnosis. The computer consists of a standard keyboard and a visual display unit which is placed on the doctor's desk. The doctor types infor- mation into the computer during the consultation and it offers a differential diagnosis of the patient's complaint.^ A research team at the Medical Research Council's Social Psychology Unit at the University of Sheffield has been experimenting with this system in hospital casualty departments. In 1981 they joined forces with the Department of General Practice at the University of Manchester to conduct a small experiment with a number of general practitioners. The diagnostic system was placed in a surgery and the practitioners were asked to conduct a number of consultations and use the com- puter. To avoid any harm to actual patients, a number of professional actors highly experienced in playing patients were used to participate in the experiment with the doctors. The actors play the part on the basis of sketches provided by the medical staff of actual patients. The consultations were then repeated without the presence of the diag- nostic system in order to draw inferences concerning the influence of the computer. All the consultations were videotape-recorded and a number of social scientists, drawn from various disciplines, were asked to spend a short time analysing the data. This brief essay is drawn from one of the reports submitted to the departments in question. It is intended as no more than a presentation of a few observations concerning the diagnostic system and its relationship to the com- munication between the doctor and the patient. Sociology of Health and Illness Vol 5 No. 3 1983 ©R.K.P. 1983 0141-9889/83/0332-0344$1.50/l