Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: How Doctors Think

Author: Jerome Groopman

Narrator: Michael Prichard

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-28-07

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 542 votes

Genres: Science & Technology, Medicine

Publisher's Summary:

On average, a physician will interrupt a patient describing her symptoms within 12 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 myth-shattering book, Jerome Groopman pinpoints the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make. He explores why doctors err and shows when and how they can, with our help, avoid snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can have a profound impact on our health.

Groopman draws on a wealth of research, extensive interviews with some of the country's best physicians, and his own experiences as a doctor and patient. He has learned many of the lessons in this book the hard way, from his own mistakes and from errors his doctors made in treating his own debilitating medical problems.

How Doctors Think reveals a profound new view of 21st-century medical practice, giving doctors and patients the vital information they need to make better judgments together.

Critic Reviews:

"A revealing, often disturbing look at what goes on in doctors' minds when treating patients....A highly pleasurable must-read. "(Kirkus)

"I wish I had read this book when I was in medical school, and I'm glad I've read it now....Every reflective doctor will learn from this book....every prospective patient will find thoughtful advice for communicating successfully." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Disappointing

I enjoy Groopman's articles in the New Yorker, and I took this selection after hearing his compelling interview on NPR. However, I was disappointed in the content of the book. This does not really tell us too much about how doctors think; what constitutes the complexity of a diagnosis or how doctors make decisions. Rather, it is more of a collection of stories about misdiagnosis or mistreatment of patients and friends of Dr. Groopman. And it turns out that Groopman is mostly the hero of the book -- either making the tough diagnosis himself or referring to one of his friends who saves the day. His friends happen to be located at Harvard, Mayo Clinic, and Sloan-Kettering. Not exactly the answer for the masses of Americans belonging to HMOs who cannot even get a specialty referral without a letter to a congressman.

The book starts out addressing the theme that young doctors are becoming too entranced with algorithmic medicine. He complains that they follow guidelines for care like robots on an assembly line. Most would agree, however, that the bigger problem in American medical care is the failure of doctors to adhere to evidence-based guidelines, rather than over-reliance on them. Care for diabetics, asthmatics, and hypertensives fall far short of what it should be and what would improve the health of the nation.

Dr. Groopman does share our pain, however. He had a day of distress because a doctor called him at home with a fatal mis-diagnosis while his wife was away skiing. He had the diagnosis corrected the next day at work, but lost a night's sleep over it.

Once you get past the self-congratulations, the old-boy network of super-docs, the confessions of imperfection in himself, and the self-pity; there are a few good points.

1. Get a second opinion.

2. Be an informed consumer.

3. Ask questions

3.