Okay, so I’m currently listening to this one. I bought it ages ago with an iTunes gift certificate, but kinda forgot about it until I was brainstorming ways to make my new commute more enjoyable.

How should a doctor think? …Do different doctors think differently? Are different forms of thinking more or less prevalent among the different specialties? In other words, do surgeons think differently from internists, who think differently from pediatricians? Is there one “best” way to think, or there are multiple, alternative styles that can reach a correct diagnosis and choose the most effective treatment? … In sum, when and why does thinking go right or go wrong in medicine? …

Of course, no one can expect a physician to be infallible. Medicine is, at its core, an uncertain science. Every doctor makes mistakes in diagnosis and treatment. But the frequency of those mistakes, and their severity, can be reduced by understanding how a doctor thinks and how he or she can think better. This book was written with this goal in mind. It is primarily intended for laymen, though I believe physicians and other medical professionals will find it useful. Why for laymen? Because doctors desperately need patients and their families and friends to help them think. Without their help, physicians are denied key clues to what is really wrong. I learned this not as a doctor but when I was sick, when I was the patient.

DB summed it up best when he claimed that the moral of the story is: “Doctors should ask open-ended questions, stop interrupting, and embrace uncertainty rather than leaping ahead into a scripted false confidence.”

Sound like common sense? It’s remarkable how often those questions become closed as the doctor becomes sure of his diagnosis and the interruptions are more frequent as his time gets short. I also have yet to meet a physician that is adept at embracing uncertainty. Medicine is all about confidence. Even scripted false confidence.

Even though the book is directed primarily at patients and their families, there are a lot of great lessons for young students nervously about to embark on their first year of internship as Real Live Doctors. After all, the first step to becoming a doctor should be figuring out how they think.