The Laws of Medicine: Field Notes from an Uncertain Science (TED Books)

A very good thought provoking book. From ideas in book, made an AI medical template for your AI of choice like OpenEvidence, etc. FREE TO USE AI MEDICAL TEMPLATE Law Two AI output on a medical case often interesting to see how AI is trying to cobble together the concept of an outlier and how it applies to rule/laws. I updated Law Three to modern present to include AI biases. Since I used the word "human" sometimes the AI outputs the patient/client's potential biases too. Added some extra thought provoking laws. I added Law Four, templates, flow charts, like SOAPER, APGAR, reduce "noise" in diagnosis and treatment. The last law and catch are classics for imperfect problems. The last one often produces a "moral injury" from a case. Template: Law One: A strong intuition is much more powerful than a weak test. [What is the strong intuition from the case saying compared to the weak test or tests? Why?] Law Two: "Normals" Teach us rules; "outliers" teach us laws. [What is the outlier information in this case? Why?] Law Three: For every perfect medical experiment, there is a perfect human bias. (modified, add Aİ bias) [What human biases are most likely at play in this case?] [What are the large language model biases most likely at play in this case?] 4th Law: Use of flow charts and scoring systems reduces "noise" in treatment and diagnosis. [What medical evaluation scoring systems apply to this case?] [What are the scores for such systems from this case?] [What diagnostic flow charts apply to this case?] [What treatment flow charts apply to this case?] Fiifth law: Murphy's [How does Murphy's law apply to this case?] Catch-22 [What is the catch-22 of this case? Why?] NB Laws based on "The Laws of Medicine" book by Siddhartha Mukherjee. This document was generated with the assistance of an AI to support accurate, helpful, and efficient documentation. AI is not perfect, and can give erroneous information. Owner permission to record asked and given, and signage up front indicates video, audio, and AI recording in progress.

Beautifully crafted in the Mukherjee way with important insights about the all-too-human limits of medical science. The short text doesn’t justify the ambitious title.

The author shares the physicians view of medicine. I do not argue with the simplicity of The book, because many people ignore simple things though they may be significant. What I feel is going on in North American medicine is the following: Doctors can get sued, they need expensive insurance. Residency is practically institutionalized Hazing. Middle class people cannot become doctors because it costs too much in time And money. Despite all of this, some people still go through with this process. There is privilege and Respect in a licence to practice medicine. So what is wrong with the medical profession today? Just as in the Trump presidency, the masses or the silent majority have voted with their Wallet. Acupuncture and TCM is not unheard of in Canada nowadays, neither is Ayurvedic medicine, thanks to the simplified works of a certain Dr Deepak Chopra. I predict that if mainstream doctors do not accept these trends, they will earn even less In the future. /END DIATRIBE

A fantastic essay on the art of medical practice. I gave it as a gift to my friends in medical fields and they all loved it. It's also really short so even busy clinicians had time to read it. I could imagine this being a fantastic gift for anyone striving to practice medicine, go into nursing, or do meaningful biomedical science.

I bought this book immediately after the interview with Eric Topol. I had loved the Emperor of all Maladies and bought copies, hardcover, for friends and family. For a non oncologist physician and a lover of history, retired, the history of the war on cancer and the complex new genetics applications were wonderful. I had hoped this book would be the same. Isn't . I read House Of God, briefly mentioned in book and interview, when it was published. Had hoped the Laws would discuss those laws as well as ones newly formulated. I too read Lewis Thomas and Osler trying to understand medicine as a science and an art. I join with the critic who noted cost is outlandish for a tiny book filled with blank pages. TED talks are regularly pleasing, but in their brevity leave the listener eager to read more or think harder. Perhaps the book can do same, but looking at the conclusions makes me wonder if a medical student can learn. Bytes theorem is a magnificent application of an old theory, one where the mathematical statistics have been replaced by its function on common sense rules. Would that we could apply decision making to the complex formula or easily recognize when tests are not valuable, such as PSA or mammograms. Statistics in medicine are often bad statistics or unusable ones. Outcome studies require sufficient numbers to have power and so often there are more variables which may impact outcomes that are not able to be evaluated. Informed decision making is difficult. So it is with insight. The cognitive scientists and psychologists as well as philosophers have rediscovered David Hume where his idea of reason being led by passion helps us understand why groups or tribes or clans defy pure reason and act poorly. In making medical diagnosis intuition is often experience, experience not formulated or conscious. One of my friends a long time ER doc could tell sick from non sick. Years of experience warned him. Years ago I ran a clinic for the penurious and staffed orthopedic residents. A case referred to clinic by a family practitioner for severe back pain was seen by a host of residents and short white coats who by intuition realized the man was a drug user and he simply wanted medication. Writhing in pain, I said no he is infected. Judgment of the profile and social status of patients sometimes over rules attentiveness to quality of pain. In orthopedics spine surgery it is not unusual to have patients where infection is the diagnosis but because of other issues is missed. None of us can write a flow chart or "scientific" method of figuring out whether one has disease or not. Perhaps Watson will. Students need to know there are outliers, and his rounds for outliers is significant to teach those learning that exam is more than a lab test or a scan. His recollection of the old skilled surgeon training residents in the o.r. brings back memories. So, the physician who had a list of seemingly unrelated questions which could help him sort out complex problems efficiently. Marvelous. I cannot wait for his book on genetics. Any author who takes the time to go see where the monk, Mendel, worked has done his homework. And he writes with style and in prose easily understood. This tiny book should stimulate readers to read more, such as the Stanford article on Bayes' theorem.

Arrived very quickly. Packing was very nice and book was very clean. Thanks

Takes a lot of courage for an expert medical practitioner to reveal the “young science” which is much relied on rests on probabilities and guesses!

I enjoyed this short, informative essay. The author writes well; he has a nice rhythm to his sentences, and I appreciate his efforts to elevate his writing by incorporating more advanced words. Its adds a level of depth that is lacking in many modern non-fiction works.

From the three laws the author announces, two should suffice to change the way doctor works and patients expect them to work: 1) A strong intuition is much more powerful than a weak test. 2) For every perfect medical experiment, there is a perfect human bias If these two laws were persistently applied, medicine would cost us much less not only in money, but also in despair and suffering. I am among those who believe that lab test have been used more often to obfuscate medical ignorance than to help patients. And medical experiments, especially with expensive drugs and expensive medical procedures are much prone to enrich doctors and ameliorate Big Pharma bottom line than to help patients. After reading this short book everyone will the able to better understand why much of what we hear about expensive drugs and sophisticated medical procedure are injuring us, killing us and making us poorer. Everyone will also understand why intuition is an attribute so necessary in the art of healing. I recommend this book for everyone who thinks good medicine means tens of expensive lab tests followed by a long prescription of modern and expensive drugs. For these people, this book might save their lives. Or, at least save them big bucks.

A must read for anyone in medicine

To start off, this is a short, small book. It's also written for a general public. It's also not definitive, because we can't be definitive about this subject. Having said all that, it's a great book! I was trained as a research oncologist and stay current with the medical literature, but one of the tough aspects of that profession is explaining to people why they have developed a particular disease, why we don't know that much about it, and what might (or might not) help. Hope is something that's dangerous: hope can help heal, but hope can be dashed with consequences for the patient. Knowing what information to give someone, and how to phrase it, is a crucial if awkward part of any doctor's job. More than anything, this is a book that tries to explain, in layman terms (without being too simplistic or condescending) why we don't know as much as we should. This book is wide-ranging, covering subjects from history to philosophy, and how they overlap with the medical world. More than anything, this is a book about why "average" or "typical" isn't average or typical, and doesn't help science as much as the exceptions or outliers do. There's some interesting concepts brought up in the process, all of which are thought-provoking. I'm not going to go into detail on the contents of the book, simply because this is a book that's easy and fast to read, and reading it is an important aspect of the process of understanding the subject. This isn't just informative for non-medical people; this should be read by every doctor or researcher. Reading helps clarify some of the issues we encounter, and how best to broach them.

A concise, engaging and well-written thesis on some of the key principles of medicine, integrating wider aspects of science and clinical examples. As a medical student I found it pithily relevant to the profession which I am stepping into and a must read for fellow medics.

El libro es cortito pero muy interesante