If you want to see the difference between how doctors and patients think, read Jerome Groopman’s How Doctors Think and Thomas Goetz’s The Decision Tree.
The contrast is striking.
How Doctors Think, while offering a comprehensive review of the cognitive missteps made by physicians, is terminally physician-centric in its analysis of the relationship we share with patients. The Decision Tree, while offering a novel blueprint for self-reliance in health, seems almost sheepish in its recognition that physicians are even really that important. The muted physician cameos of The Decision Tree stand in stark contrast to Groopman’s Harvard-trained Masters of the Universe.
If I had it my way Groopman would tell us about how patients are thinking and Goetz would discuss how doctors factor practically in to the Decision Tree.
Of course a smart editor would never let this happen. Groopman’s readers pine for the stereotype physician hero. Goetz’s readers want the kind of empowerment that leaves physicians in the dust.
But reading, fiction and non-fiction, is ultimately about the fulfillment of fantasy. It’s about how we want to see things and what we want to believe as patients or even physicians. Both books offer generous helpings of red meat to its respective base.
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Both of these books are very good reads. I think they are two of the best out there. Dr. Groopman grabs your heart, while Goetz grabs your mind. You definitely feel empowered after reading them. I feel they go hand-and-hand to help us in navigating a system I tend to wish I didn't have to deal with (and you are right, I think Goetz is trying to help us to help ourselves, while Groopman is trying to help us understand doctors when [God forbid! ] we need them).
They are both intimidation busters for the mere mortals.
Alice – I loved both of them as well. I just found the contrast striking. I'd like to see both of them recognize the subtle tension evolving between doctor and patient. I see it materialize in the social space every day.
Thanks for your encapsulation, I've read both of these as well. Your short post sums it up perfectly.
As a health librarian, I have found both of these books to be very important in their own right, for myself in particular, to get a handle on the different types of people I interact with both as colleagues and as library users. But after reading your take, I will be hard pressed to recommend one without the other.
Thanks for this great post, Dr. V.-I'm going to have to read both of these books. I'd sure like to hear more about the subtle tension between doctors and patients that you describe. I keep reading/hearing about the doctor-patient relationship being in trouble but that wasn't my experience when four doctors guided me through breast cancer. I trusted their considerable skills and they trusted my intelligence. They were also mindful there's a person attached to the breast.
It's easy to find out what patients think-just ask us! Or you can read our books and blogs
My apologies for this off topic post but I want to correct my identity on the post from secondbasedispatch (which is me). I used my openID but typepad appropriated it and turned it into a typepad profile with no link to my blog. Worse, typepad asked me to sign up for a blog! I already have a blog!
Dr. V, maybe you can address identity confusion and online cheesiness sometime
(or maybe I need to study this stuff a little more) thank you