researchIntermediate3-4 hours

Think Like a Doctor: Work a Diagnostic Case

Maps to: Physician · Nurse · Physician Assistant · Emergency Medicine · Medical Researcher · Public Health

You're going to work through one made-up sick patient, like a puzzle, from your first guess to your final decision. Question an AI pretending to be the patient, then reason your way to an answer: what's most likely, and what you'd do about it. By the end, you'll have thought one full patient story through, start to finish.

You're done when: At least one made-up patient worked all the way through, start to finish: one sentence saying who this patient is and what's happening to them, your list of guesses about what it could be, in order, with your reason for each one, the one test that would tell you the most, and what you'd do right now, all written down BEFORE the AI told you anything. Then a write-up: a short piece of writing that lays out your thinking from start to finish, posted somewhere people can read it, like a Google Doc that anyone with the link can open. Success isn't "I guessed the right illness." It's "when I look back, my thinking still makes sense, even in the places where I turned out to be wrong."

How this shows up on a resume or college app

I worked through clinical cases the way medical training teaches diagnostic reasoning, building a problem representation, ranking a differential diagnosis with my reasoning, choosing the test that would change my mind, and making a triage call under uncertainty, then published my written workups (on fictional practice cases). I learned that good clinical reasoning is judged by the quality of the thinking, not just whether the final label turns out right.

When you finish, Sidequest drafts your Common App activity description from what you actually built.

Not sure yet? Play 5 minutes as a physician first and see how the work feels.

The plan

1
Step 1
Get your patient and figure out what's wrong
Have the AI make up a patient with something common that could be caused by lots of different things (chest pain, a bad headache, trouble breathing) and pretend to be that patient. Then write one sentence saying who this person is and what's happening to them, plus your first guesses at what it could be.
2
Step 1-2
Ask your patient questions, don't guess
Most of the answer comes from the questions you ask, not from a medical picture like an X-ray. Ask the AI that's pretending to be your patient: when did it start, what does it feel like, what makes it better or worse, what else is going on, and is there anything about their life that makes this illness more likely for them. Every question should make one of your guesses more or less likely. Collect what you need before you pick your final answer.
3
Step 2-3
Say what you think, before you're told
This is the real test, and the rule is: say it before you peek. Write your answer down in full before you ask the AI anything, because an answer you have committed to is the only one that can teach you something.
4
Step 3
Now find out, and see what you'd change
Your answer is written down, so now you get to find out. The AI tells you what it had decided was wrong with them, and you write down one thing you would think through differently next time. Being wrong for good reasons is exactly what good doctors do.
5
Step 3-4
Write it up, and see what it says about you
Turn everything you did with this patient into a write-up: a short piece of writing that lays out your thinking all the way through, from the one sentence describing the patient to what you'd do right now. Then post it somewhere other people can read it. This is a real piece of writing that shows how you think.