212 Being a Doctor After Being a Patient
Individuals vary in the precise point at which too much information
overwhelms and confuses them. Even among these physicians, capacities
and interest in handling numerous, at times conflicting, variables ranged
widely. What doctors did not say played a role here as well. Providers’
relative emphases revealed styles and biases—as aggressive ‘‘overdoers’’
or minimalists.
Though heuristics and biases that physicians should avoid have been
identified, countervailing pressures increase the use of these subjective
factors. Even these doctor-patients often used, relied on, and wanted
verbal, rather than numerical, presentations of data.
The fact that these doctor-patients were surprised by the importance of
these issues is itself surprising, highlighting how much professional so-
cialization impedes awareness of these issues. These physicians’ use of
statistics reflected a vocabulary, a thought process of probabilistic rea-
soning, and a set of attitudes—about the knowability and predictability
of medical outcomes—instilled in them through their training, both
cognitively and emotionally. These uses of statistics suggest underlying
attitudes about how uncertain future events may, in fact, be predicted.
The fact that patients seek meaning in statistics (e.g., ‘‘Do I have to
worry or not?’’) pressures providers, and no doubt fosters the continued
use of qualitative verbal expressions, despite their limitations. Such de-
sires for certitude may also contribute to physicians ordering increasing
numbers of tests and procedures.
Providers, patients, and their families should be as aware as possible of
these areas. To patients and their families, doctors must carefully explain
statistics and assess understandings of these complicated calculations.
Providers need to realize, far more than presently, how much their views
and approaches toward statistics can vary from patients’.