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    How Doctors Think
    How Doctors Think
    How Doctors Think
    Audiobook10 hours

    How Doctors Think

    Written by Jerome Groopman, M.D.

    Narrated by Michael Prichard

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A New Yorker staff writer, bestselling author, and professor at Harvard Medical School unravels the mystery of how doctors figure out the best treatments-or fail to do so. This book describes the warning signs of flawed medical thinking and offers intelligent questions patients can ask.

    On average, a physician will interrupt a patient describing her symptoms within eighteen seconds. In that short time, many doctors decide on the likely diagnosis and best treatment. Often, decisions made this way are correct, but at crucial moments they can also be wrong-with catastrophic consequences. In this myth-shattering book, Jerome Groopman pinpoints the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make. He explores why doctors err and shows when and how they can- with our help-avoid snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can have a profound impact on our health. This book is the first to describe in detail the warning signs of erroneous medical thinking, offering direct, intelligent questions patients can ask their doctors to help them get back on track.

    Groopman draws on a wealth of research, extensive interviews with some of the country's best physicians, and his own experiences as a doctor and as a patient. He has learned many of the lessons in this book the hard way, from his own mistakes and from errors his doctors made in treating his own debilitating medical problems.

    How Doctors Think reveals a profound new view of twenty-first-century medical practice, giving doctors and patients the vital information they need to make better judgments together.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 23, 2007
    ISBN9781400174256
    How Doctors Think

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    Reviews for How Doctors Think

    4/5

    375 ratings27 reviews

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    • 5/5
      One of the best and most interesting books I’ve read thus far. It provides insight into what it may be like to be a physician and how they need to think and be in order to diagnose and treat. Is medicine a calling or a business to a physician/entity was elegantly explored and worked in to the fascinating subject matter. The book has a wonderful ending, which he completely earns. Hopefully more doctors listening to patients can become a reality.
    • 5/5
      Every patient, every friend or significant other or family member of a patient, and every doctor, nurse, and nurse practitioner should read this book. Period. It's that important.

      Groopman talks about the elephant in the room: How doctors misdiagnosis, mistreat, or just plain miss what's really going on with patients. It's a book that talks frankly about doctors' cognitive errors — some spurred on by prejudices and preferences — and how patients can help their doctors to catch such errors early on.

      It's extremely well-written and engaging, and wanders only a little, near the end. A terrific book that starts a tremendously important conversation we should all be having.
    • 3/5
      This is worth a read. You're likely to move through it fairly quickly. The book does provide some things to think on when in need of medical help. Asking questions is a very good thing and Groopman does well to essentially target what to consider. Example, when being told a list of potential side effects to a drug or possible negative outcomes to a procedure, ask why the probability or likelihood is for each. Seems obvious and simple, but I know I've never do this. Also, recognize that most doctors are trained in a specific manner, using Bayesian logic, similar to what computers use to stop SPAM from reaching you. It's the application of logic trees using yes/no responses and -while respected- it not perfect. Actually, this is another key Groopman point. Doctors are not perfect -even the highly specialized docs.
    • 4/5
      Scary, but fascinating. It reinforces my experience that the most confidence-inspiring physicians are those who are willing to say, "I don't know" when they don't, rather than, "Oh sure, I've got that covered," when really they're clueless.
    • 4/5
      "How Doctors Think," by Jerome Groopman, M.D., is surprisingly readable. I would describe the book as a "call to confidence" for laypeople, otherwise known as "patients." It explores the shadowy realms of cognition, wherein most medical mistakes occur. A misdiagnosis usually occurs because of cognitive, not technical, errors, regardless of the good intentions of the physician. Because of the training methods, unconscious stereotypes, and personal history of any given doctor treating any given patient, certain cognitive patterns will come into play that may lead to a misdiagnosis if the patient lacks the confidence to ask helpful questions of his or her doctor. The doctor NEEDS this level of action from his or her patient in order to remain open to all possibilities, and to provide the best care that they are able. Groopman's book openly and honestly lays out where mistakes occur using real life examples of miraculous catches and traumatic misdiagnoses, and explains clearly what specific questions a patient should feel confident in asking his/her doctor.
    • 4/5
      While this book uniformly receives "5's" my curmudgeonly side gives it a "4." The book was overall excellent but some parts dragged from a bit too much detail. But it is worth the read.

      The main premise was defective communication by doctors. The minor premise though was equally scary; the number of botched diagnoses but top doctors at top hospitals. On the other hand I recognize that sick people are inherently damaged goods. Perfection is impossible since medicine is an art, not a science.
    • 5/5
      It makes perfect sense when you reflect on it, but Groopman's description of the Bayesian indoctrination of doctor training provides a lot of insight into the common conflicts or deficits of medical interaction. The takeaways aren't simplistic so much as simply reinforcing that patients and peers should remember that doctors are human. Cognitive errors are common, no matter how elite and trained a professional is. Patient advocacy and a deeper engagement with a specialist's rationale is not easy to appreciate or apply until you realize just how often common medical conventions prevent them from even being considered.
    • 4/5
      Great for those of us who have to deal with doctors on a regular basis and need to stay informed to get the best care possible.

      I'll be interested in seeing how Watson the computer does as a doctor.
    • 4/5
      Valuable to folks who want to be an active participant in managing their health. Easy to read and also thorough - more than a pop self-help book.
    • 4/5
      An insightful look into the things that happen to make hard cases successful or devastating.
    • 4/5
      Scary, but fascinating. It reinforces my experience that the most confidence-inspiring physicians are those who are willing to say, "I don't know" when they don't, rather than, "Oh sure, I've got that covered," when really they're clueless.
    • 3/5
      Book on CD read by Michael Prichard
      3***

      Groopman did a wealth of research and extensive interviews with some of America’s best doctors, as well as used his own experiences as a physician and as a patient, to craft this treatise on the thought processes behind the decisions made by physicians. He expounds on the cognitive pitfalls that might cause misguided care: premature closure, framing effect, search satisfaction. He also explores the tendency to rely on algorithms and statistical profiles rather than on the changes and nuances of a particular patient’s illness.

      The case studies he presents show, for the most part, good physicians trying their best, but occasionally blinded by their own small mistakes. For example, if your doctor writes an order to “rule out pulmonary embolism” the radiologist reading your studies might look ONLY for that possible diagnosis, and miss the real cause of your symptoms. Or a physician relying on credible studies that confirm that treatment A is the best treatment for patients in a certain phase of a cancer might fail to take into account the particular presentation of the disease in this patient and be reluctant to try a treatment that is NOT on the “recommended” list.

      Groopman’s primary conclusion is that the patient can and should be a partner in the care given/received. Patients can help their physicians think more broadly by asking some basic questions: What else could it be? Is there anything that doesn’t fit this diagnosis? Is it possible I have more than one problem?

      Prichard does an adequate job reading the audio book. His voice has a certain droning quality, however, which did nothing to make this sound interesting. I enjoy medical literature, so this didn’t deter me, but I did read a few of the chapters rather than listen to Prichard’s somewhat boring recitation.
    • 4/5
      Like being inside Dr. House's head - well, if he also had a bedside manner. Oh, and admitted mistakes. Also, blessed with humility. If there's a double, overarching takeaway from this book, it's to a) speak your mind and voice your concerns, b) get a second opinion.
    • 4/5
      I think much of the advice for patients could be explained in a 5 page article.. but if you want to read about the case studies then this book will interest you I think. I definitely feel like I'll be a better patient now.. in the sense that I know what I should tell the doctor about my symptoms, etc.. and will have a better feeling about when I need to change doctors or ask the doctor to take a look at this from a different angle. Good but not mindblowing book.
    • 4/5
      Everybody who wants to be an informed patient should read this book. As always, Groopman writes lucidly, economically and engagingly about the cognitive errors we all fall into--and why they may be especially relevant--and dangerous--in doctors' thinking. Fascinating.
    • 4/5
      Or, how new residents, internists, radiologists, surgeons, general practitioners, pediatricians, etc, make decisions including wrong decisions, in life and death situations. The early anecdote of the author being alone in a ward, with nothing but a stack of 3X5 cards, is chilling. It just shows how amazingly brave one has to be, to simply be a doctor. The book goes on and on with complicated case descriptions that show potential decision errors in bias, influence of training, and even drug and medical product marketing. I'm sure concepts described here could be carried over to Chemical Safety Board and FAA investigators, auto mechanics, vetinarians and many different trades. Stay with this one. It is long and technical, but you will learn a great deal of interesting medicine along the way.
    • 3/5
      This was an excellent book for what it was, but it certainly doesn't contain the excitement or excellent writing that would warrant a much higher rating.The title explains this book perfectly, as Groopman shows us that doctors are subject to the same cognitive errors as everyone else. He outlines cognitive traps like availability error and confirmation bias, explains how doctors fall prey to them during diagnosis, and then provides us patients with techniques for helping doctors steer around these.Most useful is this last aspect of Groopman's book - that is, giving patients tools to deal with the mistakes in thinking that doctors will inevitably make.Groopman, though, should be applauded for his balanced approach here. Having recently read "Better" by Atul Gawande, Groopman's perspective is refreshingly aware of subtlety. In almost direct opposition to Gawande's simplistic and misguided conclusions, Groopman doesn't feel the need to come to any specific conclusions at all. The issue of improving care, which both books treat, is clearly a complicated one that cannot fit simple conclusions. Gawande, frighteningly, tries to do so and come up with a silly notion that a *less* human form of doctoring should prevail, with tests and objective scoring sheets trumping doctors' intuition. Groopman, on the other hand, asserts that there is no way to a good diagnosis without people who are thinking clearly about patients as individuals.In the end, I think everyone should be aware of what this book has to say, especially considering the practical advice he gives to patients. However, don't expect to be bowled over by beautiful story-telling or unrelenting suspense.
    • 3/5
      Dr. Groopman helps us all become better advocates for our own health care by describing some case studies and what the doctors did well (or not so well) in diagnosing and treating their patients. I've been reading this book off and on over the past few months - it's easy to come back to if you've put it down for awhile. It's interesting but not overly technical; it's heartwarming at parts but scary in others. Some chapters are a little long but easily skimmable if a particular story isn't your favorite.
    • 3/5
      As a premed student and father of a son who has had some medical issues, I found this book to be an excellent peak into the slippery parts of medicine. Especially the chapter about the woman who's newly adopted child was being misdiagnosed. She did her own research and had the courage to keep pestering her doctor about some ideas she had about the disease. I have always heard that doctors don't like being told by their patients what to do, but it can be the patients' responsibility to do some research. The book explains how doctors are pounded in medical school that if it sounds like a horse and looks like a horse, it's a horse (and not a zebra). Dr. Groopman does a fine job explaining the issue of challenging your doctor. Although doctors (rightly so in most cases) will look at the simplest answer (one cause instead of several, or an American disease rather than something foreign) this can only work the majority of the time. In rare cases he or she will be wrong, and a concerned patient can think without the same boxes the doctor might be thinking in.
    • 3/5
      Everyone needs to be their own advocate for their health care. A good first step is to understand how doctors think, and that's what this book attempts to do. The book generally focuses on the problem of incorrect diagnoses. Following each example of incorrect diagnosis there is an analysis of the reasons why the errors were made. Then the authors suggests ways doctors and patients can avoid similar problems in the future. There are numerous ideas and suggestions for patients to use in improving their chances of being correctly diagnosed. Generally speaking my reaction to most of the examples in the book was that the docors are human, and they can slip up occasionally. The book suggests that doctors are correct about 85% of the time. (Incidentally, that's about the same rate of accuracy as modern weather forecasting.) What I was most alarmed to learn about was how inaccurate radiologist and pathologists were. After hearing the accuracy rates for those professions, I think it to be unwise to allow a serious operation be performed based upon the test results reported by a single radiologist or pathologists.The author is a doctor himself. One of the most interesting examples in the book was his own personal story of finding a solution for pain in his right hand. I lost count, but I think he visited about six different specialists trying to find a solution to the problem. I noticed that his wife, who's also a doctor, insisted on coming along to some of the visits with doctors to make sure her husband would ask the corrrect questions. He used his medical connections to get in to see what are considered to be the top experts in the nation, and even he was unhappy with the way he was treated. If he wasn't happy, imagine what happens to the rest of us. In the end he had a surgery done that gave him 80% full use of his hand, a bit short of perfection. However, if he had gone forward with about 4 of the 6 proposed operations, the result would have either been no improvement or maybe ending up in a worse condition.The following is the review from my PageADay Book Lover's calendar:Nobody’s perfect, not even your doctor. But most doctors get most diagnoses right most of the time. Jerome Groopman, Harvard Professor of Medicine and essayist for The New Yorker, examines those times when things go wrong. The questions Groopman asks are crucial: What assumptions do doctors make about patients that lead to misdiagnoses? And what can you, the patient, do to help your doctor think clearly and avoid fatal jumps to conclusions? This is one book that can definitely improve your health.
    • 4/5
      An excellent review of how doctors come to make diagnoses, and what errors are most likely with the different methods. It is written for the layman, with relatively little jargon, and that jargon is carefully explained whenever it appears. An engineer can think about a problem logically, then test the results to destruction. A doctor needs to be aware that there are variables that cannot be controlled for, and he or she knows there are some experiments that cannot be made. So how a skilled diagnostician uses the limited data available - how he asks the questions, how he interprets the answers and the test results, what's "going around", how he handles uncertainty, and how he himself was trained, all inform the diagnosis he arrives at. This book is useful for doctors, to help understand how diagnoses are made, and how they can be made better. It is also useful for patients - if a treatment is not working, how can you help your doctor look at it another way. It also shows that while there is much science in medicine, there is also much that is not known. This book also explains quite clearly the Baysian Analysis approach to medicine (also called "evidence based"): where it shines and why it sometimes leads away from the truth for a particular patient. There is some discussion of how our insurance system affects our care -- where "quality measures" may indicate that the process is working well, but an individual patient may benefit from a different process. This is a clearly written, easily read book, and provides valuable insights for patients (which is, nearly all of us) as well as physicians.
    • 3/5
      This is a great book, but a little too long in places. Groopman goes through common cognitive errors and shows how doctors make them. He tells a story for each one. There is quite a lot of this. He also takes a few potshots at evidence based medicine along the way. Sometimes I found myself wondering who the intended audience was. There was alot of advice for doctors about how to be better doctors, but there only seemed to be a smear of information about how to be a better patient and get better results from doctors. Overall, it was a good read and good information to know.
    • 4/5
      This was a nice counterpoint to October's medical read, Better. Both take on the subject of how doctors interact with patients, and how they can learn to give better care. While I think Gawande is a stronger writer, this book is well-written and insightful. If you care about the subject, read both.
    • 4/5
      This book is well-written and takes a good look at how doctors can unintentionally be harming their patients through cognitive errors. This is a very broad book, covering mostly adult internal medicine and radiology, with a little bit on the ICU and PICU. I'd like to see further books detailing cognitive errors of GPs, pediatricians, and OBs. However, if you are getting older or if you or someone you are close to is seriously ill, this is an excellent book to read to make sure that your doctor and you are on the same page when it comes to your care. I'd also liked to have seen more resources for patients.
    • 3/5
      Poses though-provoking questions on decision making and paradigms in the medical profession.
    • 4/5
      Jerome Groopman explores different medical cases and analyzes the diagnostic process of doctors in different fields. He provides advice for patients on how to talk to doctors and what questions to ask to help the doctor's thought process. This was a very interesting and readable book, especially for anyone interested in medicine.
    • 5/5
      This book will change how you look at the field of medicine. Groopman does a great job of describing common medical thinking errors and showing more of the human side of doctors' decision making. Physicians are fallible, sometimes far more often than you would expect, and they need input and pushing from their patients to ensure that they provide the best care. I don't own this book, but I think I will now have to buy it to refer back to if I ever become seriously ill.