Snowball in a blizzard : a physician's notes on uncertainty in medicine

Hatch, Steven 1969- (author.).

Summary: "Diagnoses are often just educated guesses, and prognoses less certain still. There is a significant amount of uncertainty in the daily practice of medicine, resulting in confusion and potentially deadly complications. Dr. Steven Hatch argues that instead of ignoring this uncertainty, we should embrace it. By digging deeply into a number of rancorous controversies, from breast cancer screening to blood pressure management, Hatch shows us how medicine can fail--sometimes spectacularly--when patients and doctors alike place too much faith in modern medical technology."--Jacket.

Record details

ISBN: 9780465050642
ISBN: 0465050646
Physical Description: print
xv, 293 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Publisher: New York : Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, [2016]

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-273) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Primum non nocere : the motivations and hazards of overdiagnosis -- Vignette : the perils of predictive value -- Snowball in a blizzard -- The pressures of managing pressure -- Lyme's false prophets : chronic fatigue, tick-borne illness, and the overselling of certainty -- The origins of knowledge and the seeds of uncertainty -- The correlation/causation problem, or why dark chocolate may not lower your risk of heart failure -- "Health watch" : hype, hysteria, and the media's overconfident march of progress -- Conclusion : the conversation -- Appendix. A very nonmathematical description of statistical significance.