How to Think in Medicine

Reasoning, Decision Making, and Communication in Health Sciences and Professions

Milos Jenicek

• Publisher: Productivity Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781032095424
• eBook ISBN: 9781351684026
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Operazioni
• Index: Business

Mastery of quality health care and patient safety begins as soon as we open the hospital doors for the first time and start acquiring practical experience. The acquisition of such experience includes much more than the development of sensorimotor skills and basic knowledge of sciences. It relies on effective reason, decision making, and communication shared by all health professionals, including physicians, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, and administrators.

How to Think in Medicine, Reasoning, Decision Making, and Communications in Health Sciences is about these essential skills. It describes how physicians and health professionals reason, make decision, and practice medicine. Covering the basic considerations related to clinical and caregiver reasoning, it lays out a roadmap to help those new to health care as well as seasoned veterans overcome the complexities of working for the well-being of those who trust us with their physical and mental health.

This book provides a step-by-step breakdown of the reasoning process for clinical work and clinical care. It examines both the general and medical ways of thinking, reasoning, argumentation, fact finding, and using evidence. It explores the principles of formal logic as applied to clinical problems and the use of evidence in logical reasoning. In addition to outline the fundamentals of decision making, it integrates coverage of clinical reasoning risk assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis in evidence-based medicine.

Presented in four sections, this book discusses the history and position of the problem and the challenge of medical thinking; provides the philosophy interfacing topics of interest for health sciences professionals including the probabilities, uncertainties, risks, and other quantifications in health by steps of clinical work; decision making in clinical and community health care, research, and practice; Communication in clinical and community care including how to write medical articles, clinical case studies and case reporting, and oral and written communication in clinical and community practice and care.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• A Word from the Author: What Will You Read in This Book?
• About the Author
• Section I : Foundation of Today’s Medical Thinking: Philosophy, Medicine Itself, Quantitative and Qualitative Research
• Section II : Essentials of Reasoning and Critical Thinking in Health Sciences
• Section III : Major Subjects and Challenges in Medical Thinking Not to Be Missed: Choosing What We Want to Do, Defining What We Are Doing, Cause-Effect Relationships, Medical Error and Harm
• Section IV : Sharing Our Thoughts on Oral and Written Communication with Peers, Patients, and Communities
• An Epilogue: What Did You Read in This Book?
• Glossary: Preferred Terms and Their Definitions in the Context of This Book
• Appendix A: List of Cognitive Biases
• Appendix B: List of Fallacies
• Index