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How Doctors Think | 
 enlarge | Author: Jerome Groopman
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy Used: $0.73
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Rating:  162 reviews
Sales Rank: 1122
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0547053649
Dewey Decimal Number: 610
EAN: 9780547053646
ASIN: 0547053649
Publication Date: March 12, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Over 600,000 Feedbacks Posted!!! Great Buy!!!*** Never Used*** May Have a Publisher's Mark~We have over 3,500,000 Books Sold!!!
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Product Description
How Doctors Think is a window into the mind of the physician and an insightful examination of the all-important relationship between doctors and their patients. In this myth-shattering work, Jerome Groopman explores the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make. He pinpints why doctors succeed and why they err. Most important, Groopman shows when and how doctors can -- with our help -- avoid snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can profoundly impact our health.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 157 more reviews...
 An excellent read and a must read for doctors and patients alike. December 5, 2008
Soudamini M. Nath (Murrieta, CA USA)
Patients are not items in an assembly line. Each individual is different externally and internally; the chemistry is also different. You cannot treat all of them using the same idea or technique or knowledge just as much as they are not molded using the same template or cookie cutter. You cannot relate the sound of hoofs merely to horses; they could be zebras.
Good doctors have to think out of the box. What they studied in medical school, read in a medical journal, and heard from their peers' experiences can all be used as basis for diagnosis and treatment. But along with that, they also need to keep an open mind to think outside the box; to see that extraordinary situation that could happen to the patient. Just because it was never there before does not mean that it will never be there. Just because you have not heard something or seen something, does not mean that it doesn't exist.
"For three decades practicing as a physician, I looked to traditional sources to assist me in my thinking about my patients: textbooks and medical journals; mentors and colleagues with deeper or more varied clinical experience; students and residents who posed challenging questions. But after writing this book, I realized that I can have another vital partner who helps improve my thinking, a partner who may with a few pertinent and focused questions, protect me from the cascade of cognitive pitfalls that cause misguided care. That partner is present in the moment when flesh-and-blood decision-making occurs. That partner is my patient or her family member or friend who seeks to know what is in my mind, how I am thinking. And by opening my mind I can more clearly recognize its reach and its limits, its understanding of my patient's physical problems and emotional needs. There is no better way to care for those who need my caring."
-Dr. Jerome Groopman, M.D., author of `How Doctors Think'.-
Dr. Groopman has nailed the critical point in this book. I have unfortunately heard doctors say, `I have not heard such a thing in my entire 30 years of practice'. Some of them are highly pressured by the organization that they work for, to come to a quick conclusion and let the patient go or make a hasty decision. They do not have time to think too much. Organizations that pressure them this way are trying to save money and not lives. Doctors are there to save lives. But unfortunately some doctors have to use the same cookie cutter or template to treat all the patients alike. Dr. Groopman's book is an eye-opener for doctors who have an ethical and moral obligation towards their patients; who have compassion towards other human beings.
It is a great book with profound knowledge; it is an eye opener for both patients and doctors alike - a must read.
 Insightful book to this science researcher -- IF you skip chapter 5 November 30, 2008
The Rationalist (L'ville, Ky)
I accidentally stumbled upon Jerome Groopman's book, and picked it up figuring it might be worth reading. As a science researcher who's considered attending medical school, Dr. Groopman's book was insightful in confronting the many problems affecting physicians and medical schools today. After several chapters of meaningful stories, I came to chapter 5, `A New Mother's Challenge". I wish I had skipped this chapter.
Groopman begins by explaining the story of a woman, Rachel, who adopts a baby from Vietnam. This child is found with a severe immunodeficiency of unknown causes. Throughout the chapter, Groopman explains how Rachel, (whom we later find he met in their local synagogue), falls back on God and her faith throughout her new baby's ordeal. We later find Rachel thanking God for saving her child's life on September 11, 2001.
Of course, this was the same day some of God's most faithful flew two planes into the World Trade Center in His name, killing thousands of innocent people. Yet amazingly as a clinician and scientist, Groopman seems to continue to preach faith at the end of the chapter, failing to recognize that what saved this baby's life is the rational human mind (even if it is fallible at times) . The research scientists who studied science for years to develop laboratory tests to diagnose the illness, the physicians and nurses who applied medical science knowledge in their care of the baby, and ironically the mother Rachel, all guided the doctors to the right diagnostic answer to save her baby's life. YET it is this unknowable metaphysical `God' who gets thanked time and again for her baby's survival?? Besides this unfortunate, and unnecessary, preaching that undermines the flow of the book, Dr. Groopman's tales are of great value in learning the difficult decisions and potential cognitive errors medical doctors can face everyday. It arms the lay reader with great insights into practical ways to discuss a loved one's health and one's own health with their physicians.
Without risking failure there is zero chance of success October 26, 2008
Linda Bulger (Avon, Maine)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
When Dr. Jerome Groopman began his medical internship at the Massachusetts General Hospital, he placed a high priority on facts. While in medical school he had tirelessly tried to "store an encyclopedia in [his] mind" as so that when faced with patients, he could "open the mental book and find the correct diagnosis and treatment." Thirty years later he saw students and residents relying on statistics, algorithms, "evidence-based" guidelines -- tools he feared would shackle their cognitive processes. How do doctors think, he wondered? How SHOULD they think?
This book is the product of his thoughtful consideration of those questions. He read the available research and spoke with many colleagues about their theory and experience, assembling cases to illustrate his findings. There are many ways a doctor can fall into errors of cognitive process. Representativeness error matches the patient against a prototype and fails to consider other possibilities: a fit, active man is probably not having a heart attack. Attribution error leads a doctor to categorize the patient negatively: the disheveled patient with edema and an enlarged liver is probably an alcoholic. Affective error prevents the doctor from looking beyond favorable indicators for a liked or admired patient. These and other errors are based in social assumptions and pattern recognition, and in the general rule that when you hear hoofbeats, you should think of horses, not zebras. In these days of managed medicine, there is bias toward a linear approach and "satisfaction of search" -- settling for the first answer that reasonably accommodates the available data.
The detailing of these and other cognitive errors and shortcuts actually forms a small part of How Doctors Think. Dr. Groopman goes on to discuss situations where errors of thinking are likely to occur: the reading of X-rays and CT scans, the impact of marketing on medical decision making, the roles of variability and uncertainty in treating babies with malformed hearts, the treatment of cancer. The patients and their stories are well integrated with Dr. Groopman's discussion of his subject: how to partner with the patient for the best possible outcome.
This is not a book of medical horror stories, nor of doctor-bashing; not even of managed care-bashing. It's a measured exploration of the doctor's role, with a final chapter offering advice to patients on questions they might ask their doctors. Required reading for all parties in the health care team. Yes, that means you!
Linda Bulger, 2008
A Patient and Doctor MUST READ October 21, 2008
Kathleen San Martino (New Jersey)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Dr. Groopman really delves into how doctors come to certain conclusions about a patient's diagnosis. He reviews various case studies and interviews various doctors to clearly drive the message that doctors need to think differently and patients need to ask questions that will enable doctors to think differently. He also mentions some questions that patients can ask to get a doctor to channel his or her thinking elsewhere. I highly recommend both patients and doctors read this book.
This subject is very dear to my heart because I spent over four years being misdiagnosed until I found a doctor who discovered the problem. Once discovered, my insurance company refused to pay for an operation I needed because they felt I was new to this "diagnosing" doctor and he hadn't tried enough drugs to cure me even when many of the other doctors had prescribed the same or similar drugs in the past without any results. I had taken my case to the Independent Physicians Review Board (IPRO) which is at the state level and the last resort for HMO rulings to be overturned. They even ruled against the operation and said I needed to try more drugs. What was interesting was that the operation was also suppose to fix a structural defect in addition to everything else. Since when are structural defects cured by drugs? I called IPRO on this and got the response (after several weeks) that they didn't know that was a problem.
I hope Dr. Groopman writes a sequel to this book on how insurance companies perpetuate the suffering related to how doctors are thinking. In essence insurance companies are also "diagnosing" problems incorrectly without ever seeing the patient by disagreeing with a doctor's conclusion (via paperwork) and what the doctor's recommended treatment should be.
I recommend you take charge of your health care and learn the pitfalls doctors and patients fall into. What an excellent book in my opinion.
Excellent for doctors and patients October 3, 2008
Lya Auslaender (Haifa Israel)
As an MD and ocxcasional patient, I think this book is a must for all of us. I gave it out as a present to my MD friends, to my private physician and to a cousin who is a very knowledgeable RN. This book is written with modesty, humor and empathy, things which some of us lack. I am not sure that all lay people will get the gist of it, but I recommend it highly.
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