How Doctors Think

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 explores why doctors err and shows how with our help they can avoid snap judgments, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can profoundly impact our health. This audiobook describes the warning signs of erroneous medical thinking and reveals how new technologies may actually hinder accurate diagnoses. 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 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.