Περιγραφή
Medical tests consume considerable resources and yet making requests is often left to the most junior members of the team. Medical schools often under prepare junior doctors for these tasks so they tend to request large numbers of tests to make sure ‘all bases are covered’ by the time a more senior colleague attends to the patient.
Beginning with naïve questions such as ‘what is a medical test?’ and ‘why do we perform tests?’, the book also covers the evaluation of tests from a public health perspective and helps the readers to determine whether a test should be introduced into clinical care. By describing the basics of medical decision making based on probability thresholds, students will learn how to avoid unnecessary testing when results are unlikely to influence patient relevant decisions, and the pros and cons of using metrics such as sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values.
Illustrated throughout with real life examples from multiple medical and surgical specialties, it concludes with a novel checklist for doctors to consider every time they think of requesting a test.
Written by a clinician for clinicians, this book is ideal for medical students and junior doctors. It provides everything they need to know to become experts at requesting tests. It will support them in requesting the most appropriate and effective tests, and inform them on how to interpret results, improving patients’ outcomes.
- It is written by a clinician for clinicians, written clearly and concisely while providing practical advice backed by real world examples.
- The book dispels the myth that all you need to know about a test is its sensitivity and specificity. It provides alternative ways of evaluating tests that help answer patient relevant questions.
- It provides a gentle introduction to the basics of Bayes’ theorem.
- Links to videos are provided at the end of each chapter, which provide an additional summary of the content.
