Me and Jerome G.
Making your doctor better.

Jerome Groopman: "Because we doctors see so many people, thinking in the moment, we have to use shortcuts. If lay people become educated about how we think, with a few appropriate and directed questions, they could help us think better. They should ask, “Could this be anything else?” or “I’m worried this is something serious.” That is the genuine partnership."

See my Q&A in this week's Forward with the author of How Doctors Think.

Thinking about thinking about medicine
Rx: Think better.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Jerome Groopman for the Forward on the occasion of his new book, How Doctors Think. I hope the Q&A will appear soon. Meanwhile, enjoy this discussion in Slate which is rather less polite and chummy than ours was. Perhaps I should have said to Dr. Groopman what I was thinking, which is: Research on the patient-doctor interview has been accumulating for the past twenty-five years; why are mainstream MDs discovering it only now? (It's also interesting that the Slate discussion does not touch on doctor-patient communication at all. Groopman: doctors need to be trained better! Sanghavi: systems need to be more effective! But, guys, getting the patient to tell the doctor what the problem is? This is simple? This is done to perfection inside the office?)