We’re back after a long summer break! Enjoy this episode on uncertainty in medicine. We talk to Arabella Simpkin, an English paediatrician, working in Boston, who spends a lot of time thinking and writing about uncertainty and our need to embrace it, or at the very least, tolerate it graciously.
If you enjoyed Arabella’s comments, here’s a link to her website called Greyscale Spaces.
Here’s a link to her excellent Perspective piece (along with Richard Schwartzstein) entitled Tolerating Uncertainty- The Next Medical Revolution? from the NEJM.
And finally here’s the link to the AK Ghosh article mentioned in the podcast. A good ‘primer’ on the subject.
Hi Nic/Art,
Do you have a link to the paper on uncertainty by medical specialties?
Just listened to this podcast on Uncertainty – I found it very helpful, thank you. I grew up in a medical culture where asking for help seemed to be frowned on, and I worked in a rural NZ hospital with very little back up as a junior doctor.
Glad you found it helpful Rachel. We must change the culture that equates the aura of certainty with intelligence and strength. We ALL face uncertainty on a daily basis and despite technology the amount of uncertainty we face seems to be increasing around the margins. This culture is detrimental to our health and the health of patients.