Medical Thinking: The Psychology of Medical Judgment and Decision Making

1 Medical Thinking: An Introduction.- Research in Medical Decision Making: Definitions, Theories, and Methods.- Organization of this Book.- Summary.- 2 The Acquisition of Medical Data.- The Quality of the Data Produced by Diagnostic Procedures.- The Quality of the Data Recorded by Physician-Observers.- The Development of Signal Detection Theory.- Medical Applications of Signal Detection Theory.- Summary.- 3 Evaluating Medical Information.- Probability Revision and Bounded Rationality.- Judgment Heuristics and Biases.- Information Integration.- Summary.- 4 Choosing Actions.- Steps in Risky Decision Making.- A Prescriptive Example.- Structuring the Decision Task.- Assessing the Probability of Outcomes.- Utility Measurement.- Comparing Costs and Benefits.- Summary.- 5 Learning, Feedback, and Decision Aids.- Measuring Doctors's Performance.- Training in Decision Making.- The Nature of Medical Expertise.- Learning from Experience.- Automatic and Algorithmic Decision Making.- Summary.- 6 Interpersonal, Social, and Economic Factors in Medical Decision Making.- Interpersonal and Social Factors in Patient Care.- Economic Aspects of Medical Decisions.- Toward the Future.- Summary.- References.- Author Index.