The Decision Tree: Taking Control of Your Health in the New Era of Personalized Medicine [Hardcover]

Thomas Goetz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 16, 2010

In The Decision Tree, Thomas Goetz proposes a new strategy for thinking about health, one that applies cutting-edge technology and sound science to put us at the center of the equation. An individual’s Decision Tree begins with genomics, where $400 and a test tube of spit provides a peek at how your DNA influences your health. It taps self-monitoring and collaborative health tools, where iPhone applications and next-generation monitoring gadgets can help individuals successfully change their behavior, once and for all. And it turns to new screening techniques that detect diseases like cancer and diabetes far earlier and with far better prospects for our health. Full of thoughtful, groundbreaking reporting on the impact personalized medicine will have on the average patient, The Decision Tree will show you how to take advantage of this new frontier in health care.

 

Editorial Reviews

Review

“In an era where the explosion of medical information has far outstripped our ability to process it, we need a new way to make health choices. Goetz shows that way with a clarity, verve, and intellectual depth that is both fascinating and wise. This book will change the way you live and the way you think.”
—Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and Free

 

“Thomas Goetz writes more clearly and presciently about innovations in predictive medicine and the future of healthcare than anyone on the planet.”
—Dean Ornish, MD, founder and president, Preventive Medicine Research Institute; clinical professor of medicine, University of California, San Francisco; and author, The Spectrum and Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease

 

“When should we get a CT scan? Why does Weight Watchers work? Should we be scared about the advent of personal genomics? Which cancer screening tests are worth the cost? Thomas Goetz takes us to the frontiers of modern medicine to answer these and other pressing questions, providing patients and doctors with a new framework for thinking about medical decisions. This book will change the way you think about your health.”
—Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist

 

“The Decision Tree is a game-changer. A brilliant synthesis of science, public health, and practical advice that puts each of us at the center of our own healthcare revolution. The best decision you can make? Read this important book.”
—Dr. David Kessler, former commissioner of the FDA, author of The End of Overeating

About the Author

THOMAS GOETZ is the executive editor of WIRED magazine, where he has written several cover stories, and a frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine. He holds a masters in public health.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books; 1 edition (February 16, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1605297291
• ISBN-13: 978-1605297293
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #553,587 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

THOMAS GOETZ is the executive editor of WIRED magazine. He writes frequently about science and medicine, and his writing has been selected for the Best American Science Writing and Best Technology Writing anthologies.

Born in Minneapolis, Thomas comes from a family of healthcare providers, including his father (an internist), his mother (a registered nurse), and his two sisters (a public-health worker and a surgeon). Thomas currently lives in San Francisco with his wife and two boys. Formerly a reporter at the Village Voice and the Wall Street Journal, he has been at WIRED since 2001. In 2007, he earned his masters in public health from the University of California, Berkeley. His work there led to his first book, The Decision Tree.

You can read his blog at www.thedecisiontree.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From a doctor's perspective.., February 16, 2010

By 

Shigeki Minami - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Decision Tree: Taking Control of Your Health in the New Era of Personalized Medicine (Hardcover)

As a physician with a public health background, I have a healthy amount of scepticism when 'the next great book' comes along and claims to change the way we live. However, while reading Goetz' book, it didn't take long for me to realize I was in for a wonderful surprise. Perhaps it is his background as an editor at Wired magazine that makes his writing so engaging. Combine that with a solid grounding in the public health arena and the result is impressive. Although written with the patient in mind, this book will serve as an invalubale tool for clinical practitioners and epidemiologists alike. It opens a window into the field of medicine that I found fascinating and highly educational. More importantly, it gives us a glimpse at the way the doctor-patient relationship will look in the future. And, whether we like it or not, as Goetz eloquently reminds us, we would be wise to take notice now.

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant and important book, January 28, 2010

By 

Irfan A. Alvi (Towson, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Decision Tree: Taking Control of Your Health in the New Era of Personalized Medicine (Hardcover)

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When it comes to assessing the problems with our health care system and identifying ways to make it better, this book by Thomas Goetz is among the best I've ever read. Hopefully, it will be highly influential, especially considering that we live in an age when most of the "easy" medical problems have been solved and the hard ones remain (eg, cancer and many chronic conditions). Goetz proves to be an incisive analyst, a creative thinker, a balanced pragmatist, and a lucid writer.

The main idea presented in this book is that decision tools need to be developed which enable all available information to be rationally, systematically, and efficiently assembled and weighed in order to cost-effectively maximize individual and collective health outcomes. In other words, health care needs an engineering approach. This is really just common sense, yet our health care system unfortunately falls far short of this ideal, so we need books like this to help open people's eyes.

Here are some further key points from the book:

* Patients need to play an active role in their health care decisions, using physicians and other health care professionals largely as consultants, and collaborating with other patients in sharing information.

* Health care information (medical records, drug labels, etc.) needs to be presented in a sensible standardized format and made easily accessible online on a real-time basis.

* To account for biological heterogeneity among people, preventive measures and treatments need to be tailored to each individual. Thus, the information used to make decisions must include both statistical information drawn from populations as well as specific information particular to each individual (both phenotypic and genetic).

* Costs need to be controlled by emphasizing prevention of disease, lowering the cost for FDA drug approval, avoiding replacement of older/cheap drugs with newer/expensive drugs which aren't significantly better, avoiding use of expensive drugs which don't significantly improve outcomes (eg, many cancer drugs), using/avoiding screening based on relationship to outcomes, avoiding overuse of expensive medical technology, and linking physician payments at least partly to outcomes rather than extent of services.

The above ideas overlap considerably with ideas I arrived at myself after years of intense involvement with health care issues (especially related to cancer research and treatment). For example, see my detailed review of The War on Cancer: An anatomy of failure, A blueprint for the future by Guy Faguet.

This is a brilliant and important book, and I can't recommend it strongly enough.

13 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Decision Tree, January 14, 2010

By 

Stephen Balbach (Ashton, MD United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Decision Tree: Taking Control of Your Health in the New Era of Personalized Medicine (Hardcover)

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`The Decision Tree` is easy to read (the author is an editor at Wired Magazine) and in terms of content there is nothing I really disagree with. My only problem is it seems heavy on vision and light on practical advice. The vision is great, but as another reviewer points out, we are not there yet. Do we really need an entire book on this subject, would a magazine article have sufficed? I think so. This is the sort of future zeitgeist weather vane that Wired Magazine is good at. It's exciting and makes you feel part of a cutting edge, but I don't think we are in an era of personalized medicine, it's changing so quickly, the practical content of this book will be outdated in a few years, it's ahead of its time. Still, there is good stuff here in particular if you've never considered the concept of personalized medicine and links to a few companies and websites that are leading the way. I did take away one important message and that is the idea of evidence-based health-care (or evidence-based anything) which clearly we need more of in this era of guru experts.