['Gut feelings': a real, common and inevitable part of the clinical decision-making process.]

The article presents "gut feelings" as a real component of clinical reasoning, especially in general practice, where physicians often deal with early, uncertain and vague presentations. These intuitions may appear as a sense of alarm, when something does not feel right, or as a sense of reassurance, when the situation seems likely to be benign. Gut feelings are not diagnostic magic, but signals that require critical attention. Interoception, the gut-brain axis and the emerging concept of a neurobiotic sense suggest that the body participates in decision-making, detecting discrepancies before the mind can fully explain them. Clinical intuition arises from experience, implicit memory, emotions and the doctor-patient relationship. It resembles heuristics because it supports rapid decisions under uncertainty, but it is more than a cognitive shortcut: it is an embodied perception. It should therefore be integrated with analytical reasoning, neither ignored nor treated as absolute.