Watchful waiting (also watch and wait or WAW) is an approach to a medical problem in which time is allowed to pass before medical intervention or therapy is used. During this time, repeated testing may be performed.
Related terms include expectant management, active surveillance and masterly inactivity. The term masterly inactivity is also used in nonmedical contexts.
A distinction can be drawn between watchful waiting and medical observation, but some sources equate the terms. Usually, watchful waiting is an outpatient process and it may have a duration of months or years. In contrast, medical observation usually is an inpatient process, often involving frequent or even continuous monitoring, and may have a duration of hours or days.
Famous quotes containing the words watchful and/or waiting:
“O polished perturbation! golden care!
That keep’st the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Those to whom God has imparted religion by feeling of the heart are very fortunate and are rightly convinced. But to those who do not have it, we can give it only by reasoning, waiting for God to give it by feeling of the heart—without which faith is only human and useless for salvation.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)