Zebra medical: Encyclopedia - Zebra medical

Zebra (medical)

Zebra is a medical term for an obscure and unlikely diagnosis from ordinary symptoms. It derives from the aphorism "When you hear hoofbeats behind you, don't expect to see a zebra," which was probably coined by Dr. Theodore Woodward, a former professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Medicine.¹ This principle is related to Occam's razor. It is also phrased as "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras."

A similar term for an obscure and rare diagnosis in medicine is fascinoma.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Zebra medical", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki