Beyond this distinction, Searle thinks there are certain phenomena (including all conscious experiences) that are "ontologically" subjective, i.e. can only exist as subjective experience. For example, although it might be subjective or objective in the epistemic sense, a doctor's note that a patient suffers from back pain is an ontologically "objective" claim: it counts as a medical diagnosis only because the existence of back pain is "an objective fact of medical science". The pain itself, however, is "ontologically subjective": it is only experienced by the person having it.