If you are focusing on words, you are missing the big picture. 'Guts feelings' are what you get when your brain process a butt load of informations in a fuzzy way. This includes subtle smells, colors, moves, timing, shapes, sounds, chain of events and how they interact with each others.
Words can be a tiny part of it, but usually gut feelings are about all those things you can't process as easily with rational thinking and so rely on a different, less precise and more general, method of analyzing. This does not play well with language, which is very accurate and precise, very intellectual.
It's why we can easily walk, but have a hard time describing how we walk.
A commenter on HN talked about the book "The inner game of tennis" not so long ago. I highly recommend it to get a gentle introduction to this part of us. Especially on this site, where a lot of us are geeks who are more used to leverage their rational thinking than their feelings.
Last year, many commenters talked about meditation. While I do recommend the practice, starting from the sport point of view is way easier to swallow and make a better starting point for people with strong affinity with precision and step by step logic.
It is interesting to talk with a family member who is a physician mainly for male veterans of the armed forces. He's got roughly the same training as someone who would treat families, but because he's worked with this older/sicker/male/poorer population with particular shared experiences, he's really developed an ear for what these guys are saying and not saying. It's a whole set of para-medical skills that do not transfer to children, women, guys who come from a very different demographic or cultural profile.
So I sort of agree that gut feeling varies based on the language a patient will use, but knowing your patient population well can help you tune in beyond the words.
Your example perhaps doesn’t lend itself to a discussion of “gut feelings”, since it describes different symptoms quite specifically. In the absence of other information, the first sounds like a heart attack, the second, heart-burn (acid reflux).
Gut feeling relies on more abstract concepts, particularly in the context of pediatrics where a child may be unable to verbalise their symptoms.
I agree the specific example is somewhat explicit, but the point being made is valid. Whether it's a subtle choice of words, lack of eye contact, or constant fidgeting. They can all have some additional meaning (or none!).
One example that I've heard is common is about reading body language that might indicate discomfort in talking about a subject, which might suggest under/mis-reporting of an issue.
Words can be a tiny part of it, but usually gut feelings are about all those things you can't process as easily with rational thinking and so rely on a different, less precise and more general, method of analyzing. This does not play well with language, which is very accurate and precise, very intellectual.
It's why we can easily walk, but have a hard time describing how we walk.
A commenter on HN talked about the book "The inner game of tennis" not so long ago. I highly recommend it to get a gentle introduction to this part of us. Especially on this site, where a lot of us are geeks who are more used to leverage their rational thinking than their feelings.
Last year, many commenters talked about meditation. While I do recommend the practice, starting from the sport point of view is way easier to swallow and make a better starting point for people with strong affinity with precision and step by step logic.