Overview

Modern medicine is one of humankind's greatest achievements.Yet today, frequent medical errors and irreproducibility in biomedical research suggest that tremendous challenges beset it. Understanding these challenges and trying to remedy them have driven considerable and thoughtful critical analyses, but the apparent intransigence of these problems suggests a different perspective is needed. Now more than ever, when we see options and opportunities for healthcare expanding while resources are diminishing, it is extremely important that healthcare professionals practice medicine wisely.In Medical Reasoning, neurologist Erwin B. Montgomery, Jr. offers a new and vital perspective. He begins with the idea that the need for certainty in medical decision-making has been the primary driving force in medical reasoning. Doctors must routinely confront countless manifestations of symptoms, diseases, or behaviors in their patients. Therefore, either there are as many different ""diseases"" as there are patients or some economical set of principles and facts can be combined to explain each patient's disease. The response to this epistemic conundrum has driven medicine throughout history: the challenge is to discover principles and facts and then to develop means to apply them to each unique patient in a manner that provides certainty. This book studies the nature of medical decision making systematically and rigorously in both an analytic and historical context, addressing medicine's unique need for certainty in the face of the enormous variety of diseases and in the manifestations of the same disease in different patients. The book also examines how the social, legal, and economic circumstances in which medical decision-making occurs greatly influence the nature of medical reasoning. Medical Reasoning is essential for those at the intersection of healthcare and philosophy.

Full Product Details

Author:   Erwin B. Montgomery, M.D, Jr. (Medical Director, Medical Director, Greenville Neuromodulation Center)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 23.90cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 15.70cm
Weight:   0.567kg
ISBN:  

9780190912925

ISBN 10:   0190912928
Pages:   292
Publication Date:   03 January 2019
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

Glossary of Concepts Preface Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: What Are We to Make of Reasoning in Modern Medicine? Chapter 3: Epistemic Challenges and the Necessary Epistemic Responses Chapter 4: Medical Epistemology: The Issues Chapter 5: Deduction, Induction, and Abduction: The Basics Chapter 6: Evolution of Medical Reasoning Chapter 7: Variability versus Diversity in Variety-The Epistemic Conundrum and Responses Chapter 8: The Meaninglessness of the Mean Chapter 9: The Value of Statistical and Logical Thinking Chapter 10: The Centrality and Origins of Hypotheses Chapter 11: Necessary Presuppositions: The Metaphysics Chapter 12: The False Notion of Intention, Choice, and Inhibition Chapter 13: The Role of Metaphor Chapter 14: Dynamics Chapter 15: Medical Science versus Medical Technology Chapter 16: Irreproducibility in Biomedical Science Chapter 17: Medical Solipsism Chapter 18: Critique of Practical and Clinical Medical Reasoning Chapter 19: A Calling to Be Better Than Ourselves Available on a Companion Website: Appendix A: A Very Brief and Selective Introduction to Logic Appendix B: A Basic and Selective Introduction to Probability and Statistics

Reviews

""It is ... a book that will repay the effort needed to understand a complex and challenging subject. Readers who have an interest in philosophy will find much to stimulate them and make them seek fuller answers."" -- Max Hughes, Metapsychology Online Reviews

It is ... a book that will repay the effort needed to understand a complex and challenging subject. Readers who have an interest in philosophy will find much to stimulate them and make them seek fuller answers. * Max Hughes, Metapsychology Online Reviews *

Author Information

Erwin B. Montgomery, Jr., MD, has over 40 years' experience as an academic neurologist and neurophysiologist, he has held professor appointments in many neurology and neuroscience departments. Montgomery's clinical interests include deep brain stimulation and movement disorders, particularly Parkinson's disease; his research interests include the neurophysiology and pathophysiology of the basal ganglia-thalamic-cortical system.

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