How Doctors Think, Jerome Groopman, M.D.
How Doctors Think, Jerome Groopman, M.D.
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How Doctors Think

Author: Jerome Groopman, M.D.

Narrator: Michael Prichard

Unabridged: 10 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/23/2007

Categories: Nonfiction, Medical


Synopsis

A New Yorker staff writer, bestselling author, and professor at Harvard Medical School unravels the mystery of how doctors figure out the best treatments—or fail to do so. This book describes the warning signs of flawed medical thinking and offers intelligent questions patients can ask.

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. He 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 have a profound impact on our health. This book is the first to describe in detail the warning signs of erroneous medical thinking, offering 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 physicians, 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.

About Jerome Groopman, M.D.

Jerome Groopman, M.D., holds the Dina and Raphael Recanti Chair of Medicine at
Harvard Medical School and is chief of Experimental Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller The Anatomy of Hope, Second Opinions, and The Measure of Our Days. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kirsti on March 12, 2009

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 psychog......more

Goodreads review by Clif on November 19, 2017

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 r......more

Goodreads review by Hamad on April 19, 2024

April's audiobook of the month. Not life changing as I hoped it would be. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was just okay. The beginning was slow, and I questioned If I wanted to continue it specially with the first case presented that I immediately thought "Celiac", and the author mention......more

Goodreads review by Musab on January 18, 2016

A book that helps clinicians to assess the way they think, and to try eliminating the diagnostic errors by diagnosing the doctors' thinking pitfalls (anchoring, attribution and availability types of errors) .. In my opinion; stereotyping is the most common cause of diagnostic errors .The more expert......more

Goodreads review by P Chulhi on June 15, 2013

Groopman's free-flowing anecdotal style is his strength, and his unique perspective and journalistic skill are highlighted in the chapter entitled, "Marketing, Money, and Medical Decisions." Here he offers a nuanced perspective and a reasonable, if mundane solution. Medical decisions are indeed infl......more