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Re:Man saves wife’s sight by 3D printing her brain tumor by DanBC on Wednesday January 14, 2015 @05:15PM (#8889509)
There are some useful questions patients can ask.

"What happens if we do nothing? If we do watchful waiting?"

"What happens if I don't take these meds?"

"How likely is that bad event? Tell me in terms of numbers per 10,000 people rather than percentages".

Re:Man saves wife’s sight by 3D printing her brain tumor by Normati on Wednesday January 14, 2015 @07:31PM (#8890165)
Another useful one is to ask him to explain his reasoning.

If he can't justify his decisions, then he's probably using instinct which is unreliable in the case of rare diseases, or he doesn't know how to diagnose known diseases which means he's incompetent.

Some people are offended when you challenge them for reasons for their advice, but I think that's because they aren't confident in it themselves or feel superior. Doctors shouldn't be in either of those positions and should be willing to tell you how they came to their conclusions.

Re:Man saves wife’s sight by 3D printing her brain tumor by amedstudent1 on Friday January 16, 2015 @08:29AM (#8898709)
Whilst on the whole I agree with you, the amount of doctors I know that would react (quite strongly) negatively to that is quite high, so anyone who takes your advice should be prepared. The most common response I've seen to your question was the doctor reminding the patient "there is always something called a second opinion", a couple of times though I noticed them taking the time to explain it.
Re:Man saves wife’s sight by 3D printing her brain tumor by saurik on Thursday January 15, 2015 @05:15AM (#8891750)
Why is "numbers per 10,000 people" meaningfully different than taking the percentage and multiplying it by 100?
Re:Man saves wife’s sight by 3D printing her brain tumor by DanBC on Thursday January 15, 2015 @06:33AM (#8891954)
Doctors and patients do not know what you mean when you say "your risk has gone up 50%". When you say "in a group of ten thousand people we would expect 4 to experience this thing. But in a group of 10,000 people who eat peas we expect about 6 people to experience this thing".

Gerd Gigerenzer has a book explainin it better than I do.