PDQ Epidemiology

by Geoffrey R. Norman, David L. Streiner

PDQ Epidemiology is an exceptionally clear and highly irreverent review of the important concepts of medical statistics and their impact on public health policy. As the authors note in their "...the role of Epidemiology these days fills the gaping chasm between the scientific wisdom of the wet laboratory and the clinical wisdom of the ward." By translating the terminology of epidemiology into easy to understand language, the common sense of the methods emerges and makes sense to students. Featuring unique examples, titled Convoluted Reasoning or Anti-intellectual Pomposity Detectors (CRAP Detectors), the text helps the reader identify studies with basic flaws in design or research.

Genres: Research

Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Dr. Norman's academic interests focus on the psychology of expertise particularly as applied to expert clinicians. His research is focused on the psychology of clinical reasoning, particularly in the relative contribution of rapid processing based on prior experience (so-called pattern recognition) and analytical rules, and educational strategies to improve reasoning. Additionally, he has strengths and interests in measurement and statistics. Other research interests include methods of student assessment, and psychometric methods.

Reviews

[Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay, as a quick and dirty introduction. A lot of it wasn't relevant for my own purposes, but that's not the book's fault. The most annoying thing about the book was all the lame "jokes" the authors inserted everywhere. I don't know why they felt the need to make this book "entertaining," but if you're going to go that route, you should actually be funny. They're not, and sometimes the jokes are faintly offensive.

[Laleh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved it. Showed me just how much of a bad job my professors did in teaching this in university. I will definitely read it again sometime in the future.