Most doctors have a very rudimentary understanding of statistics and base much of their clinical decision making on the discussion and conclusions at the end of medical studies. Here’s a nice summary of what we can glean from statistics, and what we can’t.
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Are doctors required to take any courses on probability and statistics? If so, I have not detected it. Doctors (MDs) seem to have little understanding of the difference between absolute and relative probabilities.
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Not just doctors. Many users of this forum are still perplexed and annoyed when e.g. 20% relative reduction becomes less than 1% absolute reduction.
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Which can converge over time as risk increases and compounds.
edit: which should converge, is the more correct wording.
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I did, as well as having to understand sensitivity and specificity and how to use them to calculate positive and negative predictive values but most doctors forget. But don’t ask me to calculate p-values or do a student t-test
Most clinical physicians have no idea about statistics or probabilities. They’re not even aware that studies generally report relative risk.
Doctors have very little time and the number of new studies is immense. Generally just skip down to the conclusion. No further analysis.
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Most medical doctors spend little time looking at journals and medical studies at all anymore, not even abstracts much less studying the full texts and statistical analysis. They look at tertiary sources primarily. So they generally aren’t basing their clinical decisions on them. Practicing doctors involved in research and working for a university clinic are more likely to read their medical journals. Also doctors in certain specialties. Also, most researchers themselves have limited skills with statistical analysis. They often recruit someone to help them.
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