On average, a physician will interrupt a patient describing her symptoms within eighteen seconds. In that short time, many doctors decide on the li...
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Jan 04, 2009
Alison
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How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman, is a book that explores the topic of the manner by which physicians are taught to think, how they arrive at correct and incorrect diagnoses and how the personality of the physician, the patient and the interaction between the two can affect the diagnosis and treatment. The book is loosely laid out in the same manner that a physician works through a problem with a patient – the history, the physical exam, the lab tests, the differential diagnosis (which is
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Mar 12, 2009
Kirsti
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Things that you should find worrisome if a doctor says them to you or a loved one:
* "We see this sometimes" when said about a case that has some atypical features. The doctor is basically telling you that s/he has stopped thinking.
* "There's nothing wrong with you." Even if your problems are psychogenic, they're still problems, and you are still suffering.
Things you can say to your doctor to help him/her with your case:
- "W More...
* "We see this sometimes" when said about a case that has some atypical features. The doctor is basically telling you that s/he has stopped thinking.
* "There's nothing wrong with you." Even if your problems are psychogenic, they're still problems, and you are still suffering.
Things you can say to your doctor to help him/her with your case:
- "W More...
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Jun 23, 2008
Sarah
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My book club read this book last month. We found it interesting, but repetitive. Basically, Dr. Groopman discusses many ways in which doctors are, gasp, not omniscient and in fact are susceptible to the same errors/ruts/gaps in thinking that plague any of us when trying to solve problems. Recognizing these fallibilities--understanding how a doctor is trained to think-- enables patients to be more proactive, to ask better questions, and thus help themselves by helping the doctor find the correct
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Sep 30, 2010
Jason
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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 th More...
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 th More...
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Oct 22, 2007
Christine
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The Science of Doctor Misdiagnosis -- Jerome Groopman is the chief of experimental medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, teaches at Harvard Medical School and is a writer for the New Yorker. Groopman is a doctor who realizes he needs a doctor as the result of an experience in which he found himself plagued by a wrist injury that resulted in multiple diagnoses and treatments from four different doctors with no clear and rationale diagnosis. As a result, he decides to embar
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Aug 02, 2008
Sue
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A must read for every doctor who practices medicine and for those patients who forget that doctors are practicing medicine and make errors in judgment (and he explains why these mistakes are made in a very very entertaining way). The book served as a reminder that a patient needs to be the captain of their own ship, challenging the inflated notion of even the most respected doctor... The chapter "A New Mother's Challenge" was probably one of the best examples of how and why doctors er
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Feb 05, 2009
Jerome Groopman, Harvard professor of medicine, AIDS and cancer researcher, and New Yorker staff writer in medicine and biology, isn't new to the popular medical-writing scene. Before How Doctors Think, he penned three other books__The Anatomy of Hope, Second Opinions, and The Measure of Our Days__that explore the role of art in the hard science of medicine. Here, Groopman's readable prose emphasizes the human element, the give-and-take so important to successful diagnosis and treatment. One cri
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Jan 04, 2009
Pris
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The Patient: Leader of the Healthcare Team, 1 April 2007
"Patients and their loved ones swim together with physicians in a sea of feelings. Each needs to keep an eye on a neutral shore where flags are planted to warn of perilous emotional currents". Jerome Groopman
The Patient: as a student nurse I was educated to understand that I always needed to listen to my patient, really listen. That philosophy has always served me well. H More...
Jan 01, 2009
Greg
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This book helped me make decisions that gave me the patience to weather many tests and consultations that led to the discover of my coronary artery disease before I got a heart attack. Doctors are people too. They are trying to make a living and doing the best they can. Don't hate them because the prescribe expensive drugs or inconclusive tests. You need to work with them and force them to communicate their thinking. Always ask why a test is being administered. When a diagnosis is made, always a
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Jan 03, 2012
Sheri
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This highly readable book by medical writer Jerome Groopman certainly explains why I usually leave my doctor's office feeling the way I do, which is not particularly happy, despite my overall good health.
Groopman opines that "good medicine" is practiced by doctors who get to know their patients, ask them open-ended questions that allow the patient to provide the clues needed to make an accurate diagnosis, and are good listeners. When there's a shortage of primary care phys More...
Groopman opines that "good medicine" is practiced by doctors who get to know their patients, ask them open-ended questions that allow the patient to provide the clues needed to make an accurate diagnosis, and are good listeners. When there's a shortage of primary care phys More...
Apr 10, 2010
Carol
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The basic idea is good and it explains how doctors are set up not to think out of the box. There basic principles to diagnosis. This does make it more difficult to find out what is wrong with a patient if he or she has something rare. Part of the reason for this is that body and mond are so complex that some kind of framework to work from makes things easier. The author kept giving example one after another of how this happens but it is not really the doctor's fault because the body of knowledge
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Dec 30, 2009
Jack
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First of all, I should say that I'm a doc.
This book was strongly recommended to me by several colleagues who I deeply respect. It makes for a reasonable read, and I see why they enjoy it.
It's pretty typical doctor-authored literature. It takes a half decent idea from the social sciences (in this case, that heuristic reasoning is essential for managing very complex environment, but that heuristics have predictable failings). It then illustrates this with a bunch of stor More...
This book was strongly recommended to me by several colleagues who I deeply respect. It makes for a reasonable read, and I see why they enjoy it.
It's pretty typical doctor-authored literature. It takes a half decent idea from the social sciences (in this case, that heuristic reasoning is essential for managing very complex environment, but that heuristics have predictable failings). It then illustrates this with a bunch of stor More...
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Oct 21, 2009
Courtney
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Seems well-written for an audience of both doctors and laypeople alike. As a non-doctor, I found the anecdotal illustrations the author told particularly engaging (similar to short mystery/suspense stories) though some of the technical explanations of disease and treatments made my eyes glaze. I especially liked how the book recounts questions patients should ask doctors, in order to help the doctor think better--doctors are, after all, subject to the human tendency to have off and on times whe
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May 20, 2009
Nancy
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I read this for work - basically so I would know how to defend including it in the library collection if a doctor came in complaining about what I was giving his/her patients to read. I suspect that there are some physicians who would have a problem with Groopman's notion that doctors are human and therefore prone to the same foibles as the rest of us - but most are already painfully aware of that fact I think. Hard to say whether or not they all want their patients to know that they are human,
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Aug 05, 2009
Michael
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Here's a book I'd recommend to everyone. Patients will benefit by learning how their doctors think and, importantly, how to help them think. Doctors will benefit by becoming more aware of the kinds of cognitive errors they're prone to make and how to avoid them (or at least to decrease their incidence).
Here are some lessons I've learned:
1. If yours is a difficult case that's getting worse after initial treatment, you can ask your doctor: "What else could it be? What is More...
Here are some lessons I've learned:
1. If yours is a difficult case that's getting worse after initial treatment, you can ask your doctor: "What else could it be? What is More...
Jul 26, 2007
Emma
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Can Jerome Groopman be my doctor? Mentor? Inspiration? He is so thoughtful and humble and insightful! I am glad that as I go into medical school, I have read this book, and I think I may need to read it again to refresh my memory. Anyone can learn something from this book about how doctors think and how you as a patient can help them. (We have all had our frustrating moments with the medical system.) And I think all doctors (and aspiring doctors) should read this book.
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Apr 24, 2011
Jeremy
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A series of anecdotes illustrating some common cognitive pitfalls that doctors make such as confirmation bias, availability bias, commission bias, anchoring error and the search satisfaction error. He also looks at some of the broader problems of modern medicine, including the shortcomings of evidence-based medicine and guidelines. He does not forget to write about pharmaceutical company and insurance company influences on medical decision making. I particularly liked how he praised the usefulne
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Apr 11, 2011
Joe
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How often do you think about -- How you think? My take is that in Medicine, when your thinking is not correct, the patient returns to the Doctor. It's a good thing that Dr. Groopman took his difficult patients clue -- and decided to evaluate why he sometimes mis-diagnosis some patients.
I found this helpful in that I also have the same tendencies...1. To lump similar things into a category and sometimes make false assumptions. 2. Feel like I've done everything ... when if I had push More...
I found this helpful in that I also have the same tendencies...1. To lump similar things into a category and sometimes make false assumptions. 2. Feel like I've done everything ... when if I had push More...
Jun 04, 2009
Willa
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This book was primarily about habits of thinking that can lead a doctor to misdiagnose a case or miss clues that make a difference in treatment. One example -- a woman who was underweight, suffering from loss of bone and kidney issues, who went from one doctor to another and had a case file which labeled her as suffering from anorexia and bulimia. Ultimately she turned out to be suffering from severe celiac disease.
Using many examples of this sort, including some from his own lif More...
Using many examples of this sort, including some from his own lif More...
May 08, 2011
Di
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I purchased this book as a result of the frustration I have been experiencing from my own present medical care. Since becoming chronically ill, I have yet to receive a definitive diagnosis, despite the fact that I have seen numerous doctors. Also, upon reviewing my medical records I have found numerous inaccuracies (some of them sizeable). Further, radiologists had missed a brain lesion on MRI scans for more than a 5 years, and when it was eventually spotted, a subsequent brain biopsy literally
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Aug 31, 2009
Christina
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I read these medical narratives because I'm interested in the case studies, and I just can't seem to get enough of them. How Doctors Think is full of interesting stories, and I appreciated that Dr. Groopman used the complete names for diseases and disorders. I never felt that his tone was condescending in the least, maybe because the book is intended for physicians and laypeople alike. His thesis is that misdiagnoses most often occur because of doctors' cognitive errors, and that these errors
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May 19, 2009
Susan
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I can sum up the whole book with this little syllogism:
-Humans make mistakes.
-Doctors are human.
-Therefore, doctors make mistakes.
Ta-da!
Okay, just kidding. There's way more to it than that. You hear a lot about how as a patient you have to "be your own advocate"; How Doctors Think will give you a blueprint of what to do and say to accomplish that goal.
In Groopman's exploration of the myriad ways doctors and patien More...
-Humans make mistakes.
-Doctors are human.
-Therefore, doctors make mistakes.
Ta-da!
Okay, just kidding. There's way more to it than that. You hear a lot about how as a patient you have to "be your own advocate"; How Doctors Think will give you a blueprint of what to do and say to accomplish that goal.
In Groopman's exploration of the myriad ways doctors and patien More...
Jan 18, 2009
Bob
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My wife received this book for Christmas but I got to read it first. I am glad I did. It is both a practical assist for patients and a view into the world of medical diagnosis.
Structurally it is a series of anecdotal case histories with input from physicians and appropriate citation of academic studies. Although it can be beneficial for patients I feel physicians get a bad rap. I got the impression that behind the scenes of many a medical conversation lurks the insurance company.
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Structurally it is a series of anecdotal case histories with input from physicians and appropriate citation of academic studies. Although it can be beneficial for patients I feel physicians get a bad rap. I got the impression that behind the scenes of many a medical conversation lurks the insurance company.
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Oct 07, 2010
Stef
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Groopman describes various cases from his practice and those of other doctors, as well as a case in which he was a patient seeking diagnosis and treatment. He uses these cases to discuss the thinking errors that cause diagnostic mistakes and oversights, and the ways that the medical system perpetuates diagnostic mistakes once they are made. He is honest and so are the other doctors he interviews. He writes very clearly and some of the stories are really compelling.
I have a lot of exper More...
I have a lot of exper More...
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Dec 23, 2009
Valerie
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This was a phenomenal book that changed the way I looked at every doctors visit I've ever had, along with questioning at least one diagnosis from my past.
Groopman told story after story about how once one doctor gives you a diagnosis, most other doctors will shut down their "cognitive reasoning" and never question that diagnosis and will keep trying to treat something you may not have. In some stories, this resulted in the death of a patient. He also talks about how physic More...
Groopman told story after story about how once one doctor gives you a diagnosis, most other doctors will shut down their "cognitive reasoning" and never question that diagnosis and will keep trying to treat something you may not have. In some stories, this resulted in the death of a patient. He also talks about how physic More...
Apr 08, 2009
Sara
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Recommended for anyone who is looking to understand more about how the American healthcare system works, and how to get more out of the limited facetime we have with physicians. One of the major challenges inherent in the US healthcare system is the fragmentation of information: a test result one specialist orders may never be seen by one's PCP, or medical data is easily lost when a patient moves to a new state and neglects to have records tranferred. Dr. Groopman explains what makes a doctor e
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Oct 04, 2009
Sharon
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An excellent account of circumstances and other factors that can influence how a physician processes information about symptoms a patient reports and clinical observations the doctor makes when determining a diagnosis and subsequent treatment.
The author also offers insights into how the business of running a medical practice collides with the practice of medicine. The reality of today's medical practice is that patients are time slots and your doctor is expected to come up with a d More...
The author also offers insights into how the business of running a medical practice collides with the practice of medicine. The reality of today's medical practice is that patients are time slots and your doctor is expected to come up with a d More...
May 09, 2011
Emily
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Everyone makes mistakes every day. We dial a wrong number, or accidentally put bleach in the washing machine with the jeans, or don't see the stop sign. Some mistakes have minor consequences; others can be life-changing. Physicians make dozens, if not hundreds, of decisions a day, many significantly affecting the health and life of others; but in spite of the stakes, it would be unrealistic to expect perfection on every single one. In How Doctors Think, Dr. Groopman investigates how physicia
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Jun 18, 2010
Barky
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Jerome Groopman is the (perhaps) rare physician who can think outside his labcoat. He’s a doctor, but he’s also been a patient who has had many of the same concerns as those of us who aren’t MDs. In How Doctors Think, Dr. Groopman describes the training that doctors receive, their thought processes when they make their diagnoses, and the ways that their prejudices, preconceptions, prevailing wisdom, the drug companies, diagnostic tools, insurance companies, etc. ALL come to influence the treat
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Oct 02, 2009
Clif
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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 imp
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