September 30th, 2008 by 
Alan Schwartz
The September 30, 2008 New York Times has a new feature section on “Decoding your Health”, which includes, among other articles, “Searching for Clarify: A Primer on Medical Studies” by Gina Kolata, an outstanding science writer. It also includes “You Can Find Dr. Right, With Some Effort” by Roni Caryn Rabin, which offers sound advice about how patients might go about selecting physicians.
The problem of choosing a physician is not a trivial one.
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Posted in Decision Making, Goals of medical care | 
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September 22nd, 2008 by Alan Schwartz
The 30th annual meeting of the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM) will be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA on October 18-22, 2008. All the relevant detail can be found at
http://www.smdm.org.
The meeting theme this year is “Comparative effectiveness research” – that’s research in how to (surprise) study the effectiveness of different medical treatments in comparison to one another (as opposed to comparison to placebo, for example). In addition to the usual offerings of high quality presentations and short courses on topics in medical decision making, several unusual symposia are scheduled. These include presentations by senior health policy aides to both the Obama and McCain campaigns, a symposium on decision making and medical education, and a cross-over symposium by members of the Society of Judgment and Decision Making.
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September 22nd, 2008 by Alan Schwartz
Salon.com has recently reviewed a new book by pediatrician Dr. Paul Offit on the anti-MMR (and anti-thimerisol) vaccine movement. Back in February this year, a friend of mine wrote to me that she was “on the fence” about vaccinating her infant. As she put it, “Whom are we to believe?…I’d be interested in anything compelling on either side so I could just move on either way. My confidence in institutions is at an all time low.”
My response to her (revised for this blog) reviewed some evidence, much of which also appears in the Salon article:
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Posted in Beyond the individual, Decision Making, Understanding uncertainty | 3 Comments »
