How Doctors Think - by Jerome Groopman (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

"Must reading for every physician who cares for patients and every patient who wishes to get the best care." --Time magazine

From Dr. Jerome Groopman, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chief of Experimental Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and one of the world's leading researchers in cancer and AIDS, a groundbreaking, profound view of twenty-first-century medical decision-making, giving doctors and patients the vital information they need to make better judgments together.

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 revolutionary book, Dr. Jerome Groopman pinpoints the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make, offering direct, intelligent questions for patient advocacy to help them get back on track. Drawing on extensive interviews with some of the country's best doctors and Groopman's own experiences as a doctor and as a patient, How Doctors Think reveals an important approach to twenty-first-century medical practice, improving doctor-patient communication and giving doctors and patients a way to make better judgments together.

This revolutionary book reveals the hidden psychology of medicine and gives you the tools to:

• Cognitive Errors in Medicine: Learn to recognize the hidden biases, cognitive traps, and thought processes that can lead to misdiagnosis, drawn from candid interviews with the nation's top physicians.
• A Patient Advocacy Toolkit: Discover the direct, intelligent questions you can ask to improve communication, partner with your doctor, and ensure you get the best care.
• The Psychology of Medical Judgment: Understand why a physician interrupts a patient within eighteen seconds and how those snap judgments, while often correct, can sometimes have catastrophic consequences.
• Firsthand Medical Insights: Go behind the scenes with Dr. Groopman's own experiences as both a doctor and a patient, revealing a clear path for making better, more informed judgments together.

Review Quotes

"Must reading for every physician who cares for patients and every patient who wishes to get the best care." - Time

"Every reflective doctor will learn from this book. . . every prospective patient will find thoughtful advice for communicating successfully." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[Groopman's] most essential book yet." - Boston Phoenix

"Groopman has written a unique, important and wonderful book...You'll never look at your own doctor in the same way again." - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, bestselling authors of Freakonomics

"Splendid and courageous. . . Groopman lifts the veil on the most taboo topic. . . the pervasive nature of misdiagnosis." - Ron Chernow, New York Times bestselling author

"A sage, humane prescription for medical practitioners and the people who depend of them." - O, the Oprah Magazine

"A cogent analysis of all the wrong ways his fellow practitioners are trained to approach the patients they treat." - Elle

"A book to restore faith in an often-resented profession." - Booklist