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.

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 the sciences. It relies on effective reasoning, decision making, and communication shared by all health professionals, including physicians, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, physiotherapists, and administrators. A Primer on Clinical Experience in Medicine: Reasoning, Decision Making, and Communication in Health Sciences is about these essential skills. It describes how physicians and health professionals reason, make decisions, 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, mental, and spiritual health. The book provides a step-by-step breakdown of the reasoning process for clinical work and clinical care. It examines both general and medical ways of thinking, reasoning, argumentation, fact finding, and using evidence. Outlining the fundamentals of decision making, it integrates coverage of clinical reasoning, risk assessment, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis in evidence-based medicine. It also: Describes how to evaluate the success (effectiveness and cure) and failure (error and harm) of clinical and community actions Considers communication with patients and outlines strategies, successes, failures, and possible remedies-including offices, bedside, intervention, and care settings Examines strategies, successes, failures, and possible remedies for communication with peers-including interpersonal communication, morning reports, rounds, and research gatherings The book describes vehicles, opportunities, and environments for enhanced professional communication, including patient interviews, clinical case reports, and morning reports. It includes numerous examples that demonstrate the importance of sound reasoning, decision making, and communication and also considers future implications for research, management, planning, and evaluation.

Recent debate over healthcare and its spiraling costs has brought medical error into the spotlight as an indicator of everything that is ineffective, inhumane, and wasteful about modern medicine. But while the tendency is to blame it all on human error, it is a much more complex problem that involves overburdened systems, constantly changing technology, increasing specialization, and a cycle of continual funding shortfalls made even more acute by resource-wasting inefficiencies. Medical Error and Harm: Understanding, Prevention and Control, presents the work of long time physician and teacher Milos Jenicek, a pioneering expert on epidemiology, evidence-based medicine, and critical thinking and decision making in the health sciences. Providing an extraordinarily comprehensive overview of the subject that is as thorough and scientifically organized as it is accessible and free of rhetoric, Dr. Jenicek - Presents a short history of error in general across various domains of human activity and endeavor, including concepts, methodologies of study, and management applications Provides semantic and taxonomic classifications of challenges in medical error and harm, two distinct domains Explores approaches used to investigate and ameliorate challenges in medicine and other health sciences Explains why, when, and how studies and decisions regarding errors should be carried out, such as whether risk assessment should be undertaken in the diagnosis, treatment, or prognosis stage Covers essential strategies for mitigating errors in the broader framework of medical care, specifically in community medicine and public health Considers the ever-growing role of physicians in tort law and litigation The book also discusses whether dealing with errors is a learned skill and looks at how much of the problem with medical error is caused by the medical community's failure to teach, learn, and understand everything there is to know about medical error, including the often neglected importance of critical thinking skills. Understanding and correcting this shortfall is a primary responsibility of every health professional, one they can begin to realize with the study of these pages.

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.

This comprehensive text focuses on reasoning, critical thinking and pragmatic decision making in medicine. Based on the author's extensive experience and filled with definitions, formulae, flowcharts and checklists, this fully revised second edition continues to provide invaluable guidance to the crucial role that clinical epidemiology plays in the expanding field of evidence-based medicine. Key Features: * Considers evidence-based medicine as a universal initiative common to all health sciences and professions, and all specialties within those disciplines * Demonstrates how effective practice is reliant on proper foundations, such as clinical and fundamental epidemiology, and biostatistics * Introduces the reader to basic epidemiological methods, meta-analysis and decision analysis * Shows that structured, modern, argumentative reasoning is required to build the best possible evidence and use it in practice and research * Outlines how to make the most appropriate decisions in clinical care, disease prevention and health promotion Presenting a range of topics seldom seen in a single resource, the innovative blend of informal logic and structured evidence-based reasoning makes this book invaluable for anyone seeking broad, in-depth and readable coverage of this complex and sometimes controversial field.