Customer Reviews

Behavioral Science (Board Review Series)

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Being a professor of mathematics, I obviously cannot asses the overall quality of the book. However, I read Chapter 22 on statistical methods and unfortunately found it below any criticism. I certainly understand that this kind of material should be presented to medical students with a substantially lower level of rigor than, say, to mathematical students. However, the extent of simplification and watering everything down in the book is unproportional even from this standpoint. In many cases this leads to absolutely meaningless explanations -- those of the kind that may obscure and alter the true essence of a given concept. I think, for example, that after reading this chapter an average unprepared person will be more confused regarding the concepts of probability and distribution of probabilities than he or she would have been with just using normal common sense, with no reading at all. Besides, I found the definition of odds ratio (page 183) extremely unclear, especially as to its connection to relative risk. Moreover, the calculations in Example 22-1 have a very different meaning compared to what the author implies, and the claim that the quantity calculated in this example has anything to do with the concept of the risk addressed on the previous page of the book (page 182) is simply incorrect. Summarizing, I must say that if there is hope for the general population to benefit (or at least not get into trouble) from the studies in medical statistics, then these studies should be conducted with as little reference to the aforementioned book as possible.