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Updated: Jun 10, 2026

A Metadata Extraction Approach for Clinical Case Reports to Enable Advanced Understanding of Biomedical Concepts
Published on: September 20, 2018
1Columbia University, 41 W. 96th St., #9B, New York, NY 10025, USA. js1115@columbia.edu
Abstract:
The ontology of medicine--the question of whether disease entities are real or not--is an underdeveloped area of philosophical inquiry. This essay explains the primary question at issue in medical ontology, discusses why answering this question is important from both a philosophical and a practical perspective, and argues that the problem of medical ontology is unique, i.e., distinct, from the ontological problems raised by other sciences and therefore requires its own analysis.
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