How Doctors ThinkI usually review management books, so it's fair to ask, "What's a guy who reviews management books doing reviewing a book on how doctors think?" The answer is that this is a good book for managers and other people to read for a number of reasons. It's a good book to read because physicians, like managers, make lots of decisions in lots of different kinds of situations. So you'll see a specialist taking time to go through a detailed discovery process using an interview and a detailed history. You'll see an Emergency Room physician making quick judgments, usually with no history available. And you'll see primary care physicians sorting out the real problem from a starting point of generic and vague complaints like "my stomach hurts." It's a good book to read because you'll learn about how our emotions, our biases and our environment all have an impact on our decisions. It's a good book to read because healthcare is a major area of concern for business and almost everyone else. You'll learn something of the underlying health care industry that may help you down the road. It's also a good book to read because you and your loved ones will be patients. This book offers some good advice about how to be better served when you're face to face with a doctor and need to ask a question or make a decision about your care. As good as the book is, there are some things to watch for. Groopman has some strong biases which he never bothers to state, but which inform what he writes. He does not like things that might come under the heading of evidence-based medicine. It would have been nice to see a discussion of the positive side of heuristics and algorithms in medical diagnosis, but you won't find that here. Drug companies don't fare well, either, though he does acknowledge that they've come up with treatments of value. Groopman also lives in a different world than most of us. He is a top physician who teaches on a prestigious faculty. When he has a problem with his wrist, he goes to not one, but four, top wrist specialists. I wonder if your insurance or mine would cover even two of them. To see what other folks thought of this book, or to purchase it from Amazon, click here.
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