How Doctors Think | Jerome Groopman

How Doctors Think | Jerome Groopman | Very thoughtful

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How Doctors Think

	How Doctors Think Jerome Groopman Mariner Books, 2008 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 152 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

How Doctors Think is a window into the mind of the physician and an insightful examination of the all-important relationship between doctors and their patients. In this myth-shattering work, Jerome Groopman explores the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make. He pinpints why doctors succeed and why they err. Most important, Groopman shows when and how doctors can -- with our help -- avoid snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can profoundly impact our health.

Nobody's perfect

What this book does through the powerful tool of story-telling is both inform and empower us to become active participants in our own health care. I have a chronic illness that was repeatedly misdiagnosed (and thus inappropriated treated) for years.

As I read this book, I began to understand how that process came about. I also began to see the individual physicians involved as more fully human, and to be able to forgive them for the errors they made, even those made out of arrogance. Frustrated, I was lucky (and stubborn) enough to keep questioning and searching until somebody could answer my questions, evaluate my condition with and open mind, and provide an accurate diagnosis.

Since then, appropriate treatment has allowed me to "recover" my life from living as an invalid, and again become an active partipant in my own life. But my illness was not inevitably chronic: as a result of the delay in diagnosis, I will always live with its aftermath, and always be vulnerable to relapses. I wish I'd had a book like this to guide me through the process of questioning and discovery: it might have taken less than the 16 years it did.

The mysterious reviewer who hides behind the name "The Doctor" (an arrogant stance in itself) takes exception to this book for the way it is written and for the fact that it uses anecdotes. This book is not a scientific treatise: it could not do its job if it were written as one. As a scientist myself, I know that while anecdote cannot stand as proof, it can stand in as illustration and example. Anecdote is one of the many ways humans transmit experience and wisdom, and make it meaningful at a personal level. It is entirely appropriate in Dr. Groopman's book.

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Very thoughtful

This is a very thoughtful book. It really makes you think. It gives us a clue about universal health care.

A "Must Read" for Everyone

Dr. Groopman is an eminent and wise physician who has written this honest and incisive book on "how doctors think." The emphasis is on how they are subject to errors and omissions in perception, reasoning, decision making, communication, and action, but examples are also provided of excellent performance in which these sorts of errors and omissions are avoided.

Dr. Groopman is an excellent writer, so the book is easy and enjoyable to read, and never gave me that feeling of "just wanting to get it over with."

I think the book would have been better if some of the key non-medical terms (eg, "premature closure" and "framing effect") were italicized in the text and included in a glossary. I would also have liked to see a summary of key points, in bullet-point format, at the end of each chapter. However, even as is, the book still warrants a full 5 stars.

There is actually an extensive literature addressing these issues in depth, in a general way which covers all fields of endeavor, but Dr. Groopman doesn't seem to be aware of this literature. See for example Human Error. Therefore, the particular contribution of this book is that it applies all of this in the setting of medical practice in an easily understood way. For that reason, this book is a must read for everyone: people need to have a realistic sense of the capabilities and limitations of their doctors, so that they can work with them effectively and improve outcomes.

I also highly recommend Dr. Groopman's book The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness, which is excellent in audio form (masterfully read by Dr. Groopman himself).

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Secrets of Medical Education

Dr. Groopman's insightful book provides valuable insights into the process by which an individual becomes a mature physician and learns to think like one. In today's world, that necessitates rapid turnover of patients and thought processes dictated by medical guidelines and payment schedules which discourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. This incisive work provides insights into the thought processes of physicians in making a diagnosis, and how physicians learn to think in that manner. The material is both interesting and pragmatically important for everyone who utilizes physicians and those who should. I found this book invaluable, since I am both a physician and one of those individuals who almost died due to misdiagnosis.

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To read

Excellent book: Sharp, clear, and easy to read.
One of these books that do not last on the shelf because there is always someone reading it in the family or among your friends.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

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