As our medical decisions become more and more standardized and codified, we should
take care to ensure that critical therapeutic choices are not based exclusively on formal …

We all know that doctors accept gifts from drug companies, ranging from pens and coffee
mugs to free vacations at luxurious resorts. But as the former Editor-in-Chief of The New …

The physician's estimate of the probability that a patient has a particular disease is a principal
factor in the determination of whether to withhold treatment, obtain more data by testing, or …

What is there about alternative medicine that sets it apart from ordinary medicine? The term
refers to a remarkably heterogeneous group of theories and practices — as disparate as …

Conflicts of interest between physicians' commitment to patient care and the desire of
pharmaceutical companies and their representatives to sell their products pose challenges to the …

Discussion DR. ANDREW S. LEVEY (Director, Nephrology clinical Re-search Center, Division
of Nephrology, New England Medical Center, and Associate Professor of Medicine, Tufts …

Excellent clinical judgment requires optimal decision making. This chapter provides a few
examples of some advances in the methods and the application of decision analysis. It …

To help the physician decide whether or not to treat a patient who may or may not have a
disease, a method has been developed for calculating a therapeutic threshold. If the probability …

Optimal medical care is critically dependent on clinicians' skills to make the right diagnosis
and to recommend the most appropriate therapy, and acquiring such reasoning skills is a key …

Remarkably little is known about the cognitive processes which are employed in the solution
of clinical problems. This paucity of information is probably accounted for in large part by …