Friday Reflection 43: The Absence of Reassuring Counterfactuals in Clinical Medicine
Sensible Medicine
AUGUST 30, 2024
KN is a 90-year-old man I visit at an inpatient hospice. When the medical outcomes of my patients are bad, I am sometimes haunted by the lack of a counterfactual. Sitting with him in hospice I wonder whether, if we had treated him, he’d be home, cancer free, with years left to live. Two years later, I am not so sure.
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