How Doctors Think Analysis

In How Doctors Think by Jermone Groopman, Groopman takes an in depth look at the clinical problems in health care such as misdiagnosing and inappropriate treatment given based on poor communication, and cognitive errors. As a trained physician Groopman, saw there was a problem in listening to the patient closely and observing their symptoms carefully. There is a huge disconnect between doctors and patients which forces doctors to deal with the task of having to determine the patients diagnoses with a limited amount of information that the patient gives. A huge issue that Groopman addressed that yes, there is a disconnect because most patients do not know how to communicate to their physicians, the doctors sometimes have a much higher competence …show more content…
However, when the diagnoses gets more complicated and the symptoms are more vague we need a doctor who can creatively think about these situations, which is exactly what these algorithms discourage. Groopman discusses a technique trained doctors use called heuristics, this is a mental shortcut method used to know the diagnosis quicker. These shortcuts are no longer thought in medical school because it can lead to some major complications, which means that medical students don’t know the pros or the cons to using heuristics. These heuristics help speed up the process of solving the problem by relating it back to other cases when we need a quick solution, though, this can be grave for doctors to use, just because something has worked in the past doesn’t necessarily mean its going to work …show more content…
There are cases in the book explaining that doctors are not figuring out what is wrong with the patients because emotion can really hinder a doctor’s ability to fully listen and engage with a patient, and then correctly diagnose them. For example, Grooman himself remembers a time when he was a resident watching over a woman with many complaints and issues her voice began to sound like nails on a blackboard when she would speak to him. The patient then began complaining about chest pain he just upped her dose of advil and let her be, but she ended up having a fatal heart problem in which he could have prevented if he just stopped and seriously listened to what this woman told him. If a patient picks up on a doctor’s negativity towards them Groopman expresses how the patient needs to either talk to the doctor about the best way to communicate their symptoms or even switch doctors because it really affects the care that doctors give to the patients. Not many patients will switch doctors just because of negative feelings that they are getting but most doctors will say if they begin to notice those feelings they will switch doctors