| How Doctors Think (Unabridged) |  | Author: Jerome Groopman
Publisher: audible.com
Category: Book
This item is no longer available
Avg. Customer Rating:  141 reviews
Media: Audio Download
ASIN: B000OZ0J2K
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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 136 more reviews...
 Interesting read April 30, 2008
As a family doctor, I felt compelled to read this text. It was more like a compliation of ideas and stories and life experiences, which was not what I expected. It did not have any novel ideas, but was worth reading.
 Useful Guide for Everyone April 21, 2008
This is a useful guide for everyone and anyone who needs to see a doctor for whatever reason. It is also a practical guide filled with useful information on how doctors think. Not only does it focus on doctors, they focus on radiologists, internists and more. This book points out the differences that doctors face when they leave medical school and enter the working force.
It is simply fascinating. It is also disturbing in a way especially if you already don't have faith in your doctors. Groopman shared his own experiences with doctors when he had to be treated for his wrist that has been bothering him. He had to see three different specialists with three different solutions and finally arrived at a conclusion that was successful for him. But it took over a period of time before he was satisfied.
He provides examples of doctors who actually think outside the box as well as doctors who don't. He also provides examples after examples of patients who succeed in getting better or didn't succeed because they didn't listen to the right doctor or let fear get in the way or whatever.
The point of this book is that doctors are just as human as the rest of the world, and that makes them fallible in a field where everyone wishes they were not fallible. It also serves as a reminder that medicine is not an exact science even though there have been progress made over the last 200 years, and in the last 2 decades alone. There is still much out there that are the unknown and doctors are navigating their way through it as well as the patients. Sometimes they succeed, and sometimes, they don't.
This is a very thorough and insightful book and an useful one for all patients in perhaps in asking the right kinds of questions while searching for the answers. This is a keeper in my library.
4/21/08
 Interesting, but... April 9, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The book starts out quite interesting and has a topic that many can relate to--what happens when doctors are wrong? Unfortunately, the entire book seems to say on the topic of telling stories about doctors making mistakes. Half the size of the book could be cut down if Groopman simply omitted the tedious amount of repetition in his stories.
 How Doctors Think April 5, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The book arrived in great shape. It is well written by a doctor who attempts to reveal the processes that doctors go through making diagnoses and treating patients. It is an honest look at some of the pitfalls of modern physicians, as well as cases where they did it right or failed to recognize the true problems.
Promising Read April 3, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
An intelligent, informative, well written answer to the question I have always had. Being an individual who mistrusts most doctors I found this information helpful in that I now know what questions to ask and how better to make my own decisions in my health care. We all need to be our own health care advocate to get the best medical care possible. This book is a fine tool to that end. I plan to give one to every major doctor I have to do business with.
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