This article seems mostly a glorified praise of a top-med-school-doc, who in fact is probably in no way exceptional.
Some points:
- the cardiac arrhythmia and pneumothorax anecdote absolutely screams "inexperienced staff on scene". Not performing basic imaging for car crash victims, and furthermore thinking of a medical (vs. surgical) cause first, would be absolutely laughable for any trauma/ER doc, and does not respect standard care guidelines. Big trauma centers also means lots of resident docs, more or less supervised. Additionally, the article does not give a lot of details about the case, so judgment of this particular case from an armchair is presumptuous.
- Many medical professionals not only do not think statistically, they also believe statistical studies to be less reliable than their own clinical experience-based judgment, and often rightly so. People outside of the field often miss how catastrophic the quality of medical statistics are. The end result is that professors will cite the literature when it supports their opinion, and will say something on the order of: "in my experience as a clinician, it would be better to do such and such..." when it does not.
- a serious and reliable approach to statistics is a priority concern of today's medical system. The main problems are 1) inability to collect reliable data, and 2) professionals with no statistical education analyzing said data. This is changing, albeit very slowly.
> Big trauma centers also means lots of resident docs, more or less supervised.
Yep, that was my thought as well. That sounds a lot like a resident who started heading down the wrong path before the attending pointed them back in the right direction. A 'teachable moment' of the sort that occurs hundreds of times a day at teaching hospitals across the continent.
Some points:
- the cardiac arrhythmia and pneumothorax anecdote absolutely screams "inexperienced staff on scene". Not performing basic imaging for car crash victims, and furthermore thinking of a medical (vs. surgical) cause first, would be absolutely laughable for any trauma/ER doc, and does not respect standard care guidelines. Big trauma centers also means lots of resident docs, more or less supervised. Additionally, the article does not give a lot of details about the case, so judgment of this particular case from an armchair is presumptuous.
- Many medical professionals not only do not think statistically, they also believe statistical studies to be less reliable than their own clinical experience-based judgment, and often rightly so. People outside of the field often miss how catastrophic the quality of medical statistics are. The end result is that professors will cite the literature when it supports their opinion, and will say something on the order of: "in my experience as a clinician, it would be better to do such and such..." when it does not.
- a serious and reliable approach to statistics is a priority concern of today's medical system. The main problems are 1) inability to collect reliable data, and 2) professionals with no statistical education analyzing said data. This is changing, albeit very slowly.