Most of us have at least one cranky old relative who not only has stronger opinions than the rest of us, but is also convinced that those opinions are superior to ours. Not just content to believe that, say, voter ID laws are a good idea, this relative is also derisive of anyone with a…
I spoke the other day to Melissa Dahl, a writer for New York Magazine. She wrote a really nice piece on what medical professionals call “contralateral prophylactic mastectomy” – when a woman with breast cancer chooses not only to remove the affected breast, but also the unaffected breast in order to reduce the chance of…
Sometimes people flat out need cameras shoved down into their stomachs. A long history of reflux disease, for example, could prompt a gastroenterologist to perform an “upper endoscopy”—to run a thin tube down the patient’s throat in order to view their esophagus and stomach and look for signs of serious illness. Medicare has correctly decided…
In a recent post, I reproduce the figure showing the “stickiness” of odometer readings, when it comes to the price of used cars. Much better to sell your car at 49,999 miles rather than 50,001 miles. But here’s another sticky threshold, that was reported on at 538.com. It shows that when airplane flights leave 40…
I spoke recently with a reporter from the USA Today, who ended up writing a nice article on bundled payments in healthcare. I promise to return to this topic on future posts. But for now, let me whet your appetite with a bit of her story: WASHINGTON — Health and policy experts are pushing for…
I recently posted several humorous pictures illustrating the risks of assuming that correlation amounts to causation. But now comes along another interesting picture, that practically forces me to abandon scientific rigor and embrace the inevitable conclusion – that chocolate consumption leads to genius: Is everybody on board with my reasoning? (Click here to view comments)
Until I moved to North Carolina, it never struck me as odd that people talk about “April showers bring May flowers.” That nice little bit of rhyming doesn’t make sense down here in the south. Which made me think: but what would this phrase look like in different parts of the country? Here are my…
My heart was warmed by a new, and very positive, review of a Critical Decisions. I always find myself agreeing with people who liked my book. Funny thing. Anyway, here is the review: “This is a very belated review. And I mean that as a compliment. As soon as I finished reading Peter Ubel’s Critical Decisions,…
“If you insure them, they will come.” Those words might as well be the mantra of hospitals across the country, because they can expect an onslaught of customers thanks to the expansion of health insurance under Obamacare. A recent study published in Science showed increased emergency room use among people in Oregon who became eligible…
As a behavioral scientist, I have long been interested in self-deception. But I’ve never thought about it this way before, as pictured in a tremendous drawing by Jonathan Bartlett: (Click here to view comments)