Dr Ashville is training to be a family physician and gets a phone call from a disgruntled patient called Jane Brown. She got a message saying “As your Cardiovascular risk is now 10% it is recommended you take a statin medication”. She is a bit cross she didn’t get a proper conversation about a new prescription but her main question is…”How likely am I to actually benefit from this treatment? Is it really worth it?” Dr Ashville realises they have been “following a protocol” and is not exactly sure how to answer and decides to talk the issue over with the clinician supervising their medical education.

Doing statistics can be difficult but understanding them can be fairly simple