(p. A11) Into the “swift currents and roiling waters of modern medicine” plunges Dr. Steven Hatch, whose informative “Snowball in a Blizzard” adds an important perspective. Dr. Hatch believes that our health-care system can “champion patient autonomy” and facilitate “more humane treatment, less anxiety, and better care” by revealing to patients the “great unspoken secret of medicine.” What’s the secret? Simply stated, “doctors often do not ‘know’ what they are doing.” In Dr. Hatch’s view, despite spectacular advances in biomedical science, modern “doctors simply cannot provide the kind of confident predictions that are often expected of them.”
. . .
He begins where Donald Rumsfeld ended: There will always be “known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns” in medicine. Dr. Hatch illustrates this spectrum of uncertainty with engaging exposés of popular screening tests like mammograms (attempting to detect breast cancer is like “finding a snowball in a blizzard”); common drug treatments, like those used to lower serum cholesterol or blood-pressure levels (about which expert national guidelines seem to change almost yearly); and health-care coverage in the lay media (whose “breaking news” too often ignores the uncertainty of the news being broken). Throughout his book, Dr. Hatch’s message is “caveat emptor,” warning his readers to beware not only the pseudoscientists, flim-flammers, anti-vacciners and celebrity doctors but also the all-too-certain pronouncements of the medical establishment.
For the full review, see:
BRENDAN REILLY. “BOOKSHELF; Give It To Me Straight, Doc; Doctors can’t really be certain if any treatment will help a particular person. But patients are looking for prescriptions, not probabilities.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., March 15, 2016): A11.
(Note: the ellipsis between paragraphs, and the first two in the final quoted paragraph, are added; the third ellipsis in the final paragraph is in the original.)
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date March 14, 2016.)
The book under review, is:
Hatch, Steven. Snowball in a Blizzard: A Physician’s Notes on Uncertainty in Medicine. New York: Basic Books, 2016.