How Doctors Think | 
| Author: Jerome Groopman
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  154 reviews
Sales Rank: 14526
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0618610030
Dewey Decimal Number: 610
EAN: 9780618610037
ASIN: 0618610030
Publication Date: March 19, 2007
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Product Description
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. Groopman 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 profoundly impact our health. This book is the first to describe in detail the warning signs of erroneous medical thinking and reveal how new technologies may actually hinder accurate diagnoses. How Doctors Think offers 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 doctors, 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 149 more reviews...
 Do Doctors Think? July 26, 2008
I am an R.N., and thought I knew how my fellow medical people, the doctors, thought. They acted in unusual ways at times, but I didn't know why. This book is a portal into the ways that the people who hold our lives in their hands, come to some of the decisions that they make. I recommend it highly to all. You don't have to be in it (the medical profession) to be aware. At some time, sooner or later, we and our families and friends become ill. At that time, we all need doctors. It is good to know a little more of their training, and what might make them tick in a certain way. It is well-written, and makes many valid points.
 Inspiring Read July 22, 2008
As a clinician in the aftermath of making a cognitive error, I found Dr. Groopman's book inspiring. It has opened my eyes to blind spots in thinking and how emotions play a bigger part than we want to admit. Reading this book has given me insight about how the very things that are strengths if taken to the enth degree can be a weakness.
This book is relevant not only for the clinician who wants to improve, but for patients who want to learn how to best communicate their needs in a way that gets the attention and focus of the clinician from the moment they say enter into that delicate relationship and allow a stranger to examine their most intimate selves.
To read July 1, 2008
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.
Secrets of Medical Education June 8, 2008
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.
A "Must Read" for Everyone June 8, 2008
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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