About Face
The physician's general survey is an invaluable method for quickly assessing a patient's overall health and demeanor. Recent studies in psychology have found that qualities of one's face including skin coloration and facial adiposity are associated with one's underlying health. Subtle variations in these features can indicate serious health problems but can be detected with the untrained eye. Here, we describe how these facial traits link to health and discuss how such cues could be incorporated into the physician's general survey. In light of research on the barriers preventing physicians from implementing new approaches in their practice, we also consider how scans of facial cues to health could be rapidly and effortlessly integrated into a physician's current general survey. Integrating assessments of facial cues to health into the general survey would be a simple, low risk, and low cost way to detect, monitor, and track possible health concerns, particularly in the burgeoning field of telemedicine.