4 ms·
Most doctors won't bother with ordering tests for disease with 0.1% incidence rate (or much higher) until more common and probable causes are excluded. And even
by super_mario 15y ago
Most doctors won't bother with ordering tests for disease with 0.1% incidence rate (or much higher) until more common and probable causes are excluded. And even then, they would most likely defer you to someone who specializes in the very narrow field who could potentially make correct diagnosis with the existing data.
Double blind trials are for clinical studies. You don't do double blind trials on single patient :D.
- barrkel 15y agoOne anecdote was related on Econ Talk, Russ Roberts and Arnold Kling: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/11/arnold_kling_on.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/11/arnold_kling_on.htm... - from the summary, you can listen to the podcast for more: "Bayes Theorem, 40 year old man with microscopic blood in urine, incidence of serious illness for that symptom at that age in a non-smoker is low, so more sensible to not have the extra test. Doctor didn't understand Bayes Theorem, was deeply offended and yelled at Arnold's wife" I chose my example to explain Bayes and the base rate fallacy nice and clearly. An example chosen on didactic grounds is easy to attack on realism grounds. But it really does happen. Honest! My point is, if you're not accounting for bias - an easy mistake to make - you are not doing science. And thus, a doctor's diagnosis is frequently not like science, because it doesn't have good quality objective procedures to exclude it.