How Doctors Think
 
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From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. SignatureReviewed by Perri KlassI wish I had read this book when I was in medical school, and I'm glad I've read it now. Most readers will knowJerome Groopman from his essays in the New Yorker, which take on a wide variety of complex medical conditions, evocatively communicating the tensions and emotions of both doctors and patients.But this book is something different: a sustained, incisive and sometimes agonized inquiry into the processes by which medical minds--brilliant, experienced, highly erudite medical minds--synthesize information and understand illness. How Doctors Think is mostly about how these doctors get it right, and about why they sometimes get it wrong: "[m]ost errors are mistakes in thinking. And part of what causes these cognitive errors is our inner feelings, feelings we do not readily admit to and often don't realize." Attribution errors happen when a doctor's diagnostic cogitations are shaped by a particular stereotype. It can be negative: when five doctors fail to diagnose an endocrinologic tumor causing peculiar symptoms in "a persistently complaining, melodramatic menopausal woman who quite accurately describes herself as kooky." But positive feelings also get in the way; an emergency room doctor misses unstable angina in a forest ranger because "the ranger's physique and chiseled features reminded him of a young Clint Eastwood--all strong associations with health and vigor." Other errors occur when a patient is irreversibly classified with a particular syndrome: "diagnosis momentum, like a boulder rolling down a mountain, gains enough force to crush anything in its way." The patient stories are told with Groopman's customary attention to character and emotion. And there is great care and concern for the epistemology of medical knowledge, and a sense of life-and-death urgency in analyzing the well-intentioned thought processes of the highly trained. I have never read elsewhere this kind of discussion of the ambiguities besetting the superspecialized--the doctors on whom the rest of us depend: "Specialization in medicine confers a false sense of certainty." How Doctors Think helped me understand my own thought processes and my colleagues'--even as it left me chastened and dazzled by turns. Every reflective doctor will learn from this book--and every prospective patient will find thoughtful advice for communicating successfully in the medical setting and getting better care.Many of the physicians Dr. Groopman writes about are visionaries and heroes; their diagnostic and therapeutic triumphs are astounding. And these are the doctors who are, like the author, willing to anatomize their own serious errors. This passionate honesty gives the book an immediacy and an eloquence that will resonate with anyone interested in medicine, science or the cruel beauties of those human endeavors which engage mortal stakes. (Mar. 19)Klass is professor of journalism and pediatrics at NYU. Her most recent book is Every Mother Is a Daughter, with Sheila Solomon Klass. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by David Brown Why is it that How Doctors Think is likely to find an audience while How Automotive Engineers Think would be a tough sell, and How Bookkeepers Think wouldn't have a prayer? Part of the reason is that most of us believe, rightly or wrongly, that our lives might one day depend on the right decision by a doctor -- a belief we share about few other occupations. Most, as well, have watched doctors work, an experience, whether good or bad, that tends to lend an oracular quality to what a doctor does. And then there's the drama and heroism that's supposed to be -- and occasionally is -- part of medicine. Jerome Groopman, a physician at Harvard Medical School who is also a writer for the New Yorker, does not debunk the notion of medical "exceptionalism." His book contains all kinds of smart, often selfless, occasionally heroic doctors making good

Submitted On:

09 Sep 2007

File Author:

Groopman, Jerome

File Size:

13.67 MB