Main description:

How Doctors Think defines the nature and importance of clinical judgment. Although physicians make use of science, this book argues that medicine is not itself a science but rather an interpretive practice that relies on clinical reasoning. A physician looks at the patient's history along with the presenting physical signs and symptoms and juxtaposes these with clinical experience and empirical studies to construct a tentative account of the illness.
How Doctors Think is divided into four parts. Part one introduces the concept of medicine as a practice rather than a science; part two discusses the idea of causation; part three delves into the process of forming clinical judgment; and part four considers clinical judgment within the uncertain nature of medicine itself. In How Doctors Think, Montgomery contends that assuming medicine is strictly a science can have adverse side effects, and suggests reducing these by recognizing the vital role
of clinical judgment.

"This is a book that will be read with pleasure by anyone interested in how medicine is done and it is a book that should be required reading for all students starting their clinical training."-Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine

"Montgomery has certainly written a piece that will stimulate people to think more deeply about medical and wider health professional practice. It is a text I will recommend to students and colleagues."-PsycCRITIQUES

Contents:

PART I. MEDICINE AS A PRACTICE ; 1. Medicine and the Limits of Knowledge ; 2. The Misdescription of Medicine ; PART II. CLINICAL JUDGMENT AND THE IDEA OF CAUSE ; 3. Clinical Judgment and the Interpretation of the Case ; 4. "What Brings You Here Today?": The Idea of Cause in Medical Practice ; 5. The Simplification of Clinical Cause ; 6. Clinical Judgment and the Problem of Particularizing ; PART III. THE FORMATION OF CLINICAL JUDGMENT ; 7. Aphorisms, Maxims, and Old Saws: Some Rules of Clinical Reasoning ; 8. "Don't Think Zebras": A Theory of Clinical Knowing ; 9. Knowing One's Place: The Evaluation of Clinical Judgment ; PART IV. CLINICAL JUDGMENT AND THE NATURE OF MEDICINE ; 10. The Self in Medicine: The Use and Misuse of the Science Claim ; 11. A Medicine of Neighbors ; 12. Uncertainty and the Ethics of Practice