The shared clinical decision is a two way street

Peter Ubel is a doctor specialized in the field of bioethics and the research of human behaviour. As he confesses in his blog, he likes to explore the dialectic of rational and irrational forces that affect the people’s health, their happiness and the way society works.

I attached a promotional video for his book "Critical Decisions" which delves into the realm of shared clinical decisions. "The attitude of people to the risk of contracting a disease, argues Dr. Ubel in this video, does not depend on whether they understand the numbers explained to them, but on how they interpret them and, thus, very often important clinical decisions are taken based on the subtlety of perception." For example, many patients are more inclined to opt for an intervention with a 90% survival rate than for one with a 10% mortality rate. Given a risk, fear always wins over reason.

The genome price plummets: Good news?

What can laparoscopic cholecystectomy teach us about genomic testing? Read here to find out http://t.co/TBdTarqNDk

— Peter Ubel (@peterubel) 26 agost, 2014

Peter Ubel is a researcher at Duke University in North Carolina and author of "Critical Decisions" book. We already had a post mentioning Dr Ubel: "Teaching patients to make the timely question." Now, along with that tweet, he sent us to a post written by himself on the Forbes magazine blog which analyzes the impact of plummeting prices for the genome test.

Teaching the patients to pose a timely question

How can cancer patients get more engaged with their care? http://t.co/KWOy1zTR7N #patientengagement
— Peter Ubel (@peterubel) December 18, 2013

Peter Ubel is a doctor by profession and a researcher at Duke University in North Carolina, primarily in human condition and its relation to health, happiness and generally the way in which society works. He is the author of "Critical Decisions".

I chose this tweet because it leads to a blog of the Cancer Today, journal of the American Association for Cancer Research which states that posing the right question can help patients suffering from metastatic cancer to understand the risks and benefits of the treatments and to more appropriately formulate their personal goals. Palliative chemotherapy may improve the quality of lives for metastatic patients, but once the cancer spreads, the treatment decisions are increasingly complex, the conversations between doctors and patients are increasingly emotional and in such a delicate environment, the statistics may even mislead.