A Breast Cancer Surgeon Who Keeps Challenging the Status Quo

This article reminds me of a good book I read called Risk Savvy that cites a ton of examples (including breast cancer) of healthcare providers making poor decisions based on their misunderstanding of basic statistics and probability. It's a great read, and the author reviews a bunch of historical medical data that made me rethink how I get screened and how I would make decisions based on my test results. The book also covers a bunch of other topics to help you make better data-driven choices, although I did think it was a little repetitive.

http://www.amazon.com/Risk-Savvy-Make-Good-Decisions-ebook/d...

I see this as being a direct result of more data in healthcare- now that there are better and more effective ways to scan patients and get a more holistic view of what's going on inside their bodies doctors can take a more nuanced approach to treatment. Back in the day when we could only see that there was a lump SOP was to open the patient up and take the lump out, because that was the only thing you could do. But now there are more advanced screening methods and monitoring so jumping right into surgery is not the only step to be taken.

Health care is splitting into doctors like Dr. Esserman who take the time to incorporate new technology and techniques into their practices and old-school doctors who don't update diagnostic and treatment procedures beyond what they learned in school, whenever that might have been.

Also this makes me extremely relieved because as a woman the two things you fear most are breast cancer and ovarian cancer so it's good to know that at least with breast cancer the trend is moving away from "cut them off! cut them off immediately!"