This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

William H. Havener, MD
Columbus, Ohio

JAMA. 1990;264(12):1533.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Since I have been actively participating in educational institutions for the past 56 years and am currently a full professor and practicing ophthalmologist, I completely agree with Dr Eddy's¹ thesis that the pathway to professional betterment is through continuing research and education. Always that has been true and has been our sought-after professional goal.

However, the illustration that accompanied Dr Eddy's article purports to show that 57 specialists' estimates ranged from 0% to 100% probability of occurrence of a given outcome. This is stated to prove the extreme inaccuracy of the practice of medicine. Since the details of this event were concealed, evaluation of its significance is impossible except by hypothetical approach. I think it does not mean what Dr Eddy assumes and it will be quoted by government to our undeserved detriment.

Analysis of the illustrated distribution of the 57 estimates immediately reveals that it . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?