Human beings often can quickly form an opinion in response to a question. Taking the time to carefully consider why you have a particular opinion is rarer, however, and yet openness to understanding how you arrived at an opinion can offer important flexibility in response to new information while ensuring that you act according to the key values which you hold most dearly.
How does your clinician make a decision about what care to recommend to you? For many people, that decision-making process is something of a black box. Many Americans trust the clinician they regularly see for care, but it is not clear whether many people have a deep understanding of how clinical recommendations are made and clinicians themselves may not always have a clear articulation of their routine decision-making. In light of new research, some aspects of medical training seem to warrant reform, including the ways that clinicians are advised to consider racial differences in their work. A new coalition of organizations in New York City has been exploring this concern and we recently had a chance to talk with a representative from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene about this work.
Part of what is compelling about the work of the Coalition to End Racism in Clinical Algorithms is their willingness both to investigate how basic decision-making works in medicine and to translate that exploration for a wide array of audiences. Explaining how processes work – and not just focusing on outcomes or values debates – can help to improve the ability for people and groups to talk with one another about how to achieve what is best for everyone in a community.
In this episode of our show, we both unpack the concept of an algorithm — which often appears in public discourse as a buzzword without thorough explanation — and the ways in which clinicians do their valuable and challenging work every day to keep people healthy. The conversation is a great example of how we sometimes take for granted basic interactions between scientific professionals and people in all walks of life and how we can find ways to improve those interactions.
The Measure of Everyday Life 