The Secrets Of Medical Decision Making

Dr. Reznik's new book shows what goes on behind the scenes of current medical care and how it impacts the patient. He also offers possible solutions for outpatient, inpatient, preventive, and end-of-life care settings.

Dr. Reznik's new book shows what goes on behind the scenes of current medical care and how it impacts the patient. He also offers possible solutions for outpatient, inpatient, preventive, and end-of-life care settings.

A nerosurgeon discusses the secret to making wise decisions about health care, urging readers to weigh the trade-offs carefully, search the internet effectively, and understand how personal beliefs affect important decisions.

Never before have the powerful techniques of decision analysis had more importance for patient and doctor. This book translates the major principles of medical decision making into clinically relevant and easy-to-understand terms. Filled with examples drawn from patient care and familiar games of chance, Making Medical Decisions teaches the reader how to feel confident about giving the best advice in the face of the inherent uncertainties of real-world medicine.

David Rothman gives us a brilliant, finely etched study of medical practice today. Beginning in the mid-1960s, the practice of medicine in the United States underwent a most remarkable--and thoroughly controversial--transformation. The discretion that the profession once enjoyed has been increasingly circumscribed, and now an almost bewildering number of parties and procedures participate in medical decision making. Well into the post-World War II period, decisions at the bedside were the almost exclusive concern of the individual physician, even when they raised fundamental ethical and social issues. It was mainly doctors who wrote and read about the morality of withholding a course of antibiotics and letting pneumonia serve as the old man's best friend, of considering a newborn with grave birth defects a "stillbirth" thus sparing the parents the agony of choice and the burden of care, of experimenting on the institutionalized the retarded to learn more about hepatitis, or of giving one patient and not another access to the iron lung when the machine was in short supply. Moreover, it was usually the individual physician who decided these matters without formal discussions with patients, their families, or even with colleagues, and certainly without drawing the attention of journalists, judges, or professional philosophers. The impact of the invasion of outsiders into medical decision-making, most generally framed, was to make the invisible visible. Outsiders to medicine--that is, lawyers, judges, legislators, and academics--have penetrated its every nook and cranny, in the process giving medicine exceptional prominence on the public agenda and making it the subject of popular discourse. The glare of the spotlight transformed medical decision making, shaping not merely the external conditions under which medicine would be practiced (something that the state, through the regulation of licensure, had always done), but the very substance of medical pract

Since it was first published in 1988, ""Medical Decision Making"" has become the world-wide standard textbook for medical decision making. Written to meet the needs of medical students and experienced clinicians alike, this book is a clearly presented, step-by-step guide to understanding how, through the processes of decision analysis, a physician can reach valid, reasoned conclusions about medical treatment despite imperfect information about the patient. The focus of ""Medical Decision Making"" is on estimating probability, measuring the inaccuracy of clinical data, and interpreting new information, then making choices: should the patient be treated, should more information be obtained, or should nothing be done? The authors make extensive use of clinical examples to illustrate Bayesian analysis, formal decision analysis, and basic concepts of how to evaluate the usefulness of diagnostic tests in various situations. The text is supplemented with many illustrations, useful end-of-chapter self-assessment questions, an appendix giving the sensitivity and specificity of nearly 100 diagnostic tests, and a selective annotated bibliography directing the reader to significant articles in the current literature.

MEDICAL DECISION MAKING Detailed resource showing how to best make medical decisions while incorporating clinical practice guidelines and decision support systems Sir William Osler, a legendary physician of an earlier era, once said, “Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.” In Osler’s day, and now, decisions about treatment often cannot wait until the diagnosis is certain. Medical Decision Making is about how to make the best possible decision given that uncertainty. The book shows how to tailor decisions under uncertainty to achieve the best outcome based on published evidence, features of a patient’s illness, and the patient’s preferences. Medical Decision Making describes a powerful framework for helping clinicians and their patients reach decisions that lead to outcomes that the patient prefers. That framework contains the key principles of patient-centered decision-making in clinical practice. Since the first edition of Medical Decision Making in 1988, the authors have focused on explaining key concepts and illustrating them with clinical examples. For the Third Edition, every chapter has been revised and updated. Written by four distinguished and highly qualified authors, Medical Decision Making includes information on: How to consider the possible causes of a patient’s illness and decide on the probability of the most important diagnoses. How to measure the accuracy of a diagnostic test. How to help patients express their concerns about the risks that they face and how an illness may affect their lives. How to describe uncertainty about how an illness may change over time. How to construct and analyze decision trees. How to identify the threshold for doing a test or starting treatment How to apply these concepts to the design of practice guidelines and medical policy making. Medical Decision Making is a valuable resource for clinicians, medical trainees, and students of decision analysis who wish to fully understand and apply the principles of decision making to clinical practice.