If you're an ER doc, what makes you qualified to criticize their statistics?
1) It is impressive that they managed to recruit so many patients for such a complicated study, and I don't think their sample size is that small in the first place.
2) If you do a power analysis, it won't tell you whether the 18% difference is "real" after you've already established statistical significance.
3) Regarding intravenous thrombolytics: So the 28% vs 23% is "not all that different". But could it make a difference to a few patients? The "lousy p-value" (p=.043) indicates a significant difference at alpha=.05, so I have no idea why you call it lousy.
Your post basically showed that ER docs will use the year of stats classes that they took in school to interpret research any damn way they want to.
America's smartest columnist in Parade magazine, Marilyn vos Savant, answered this sort of question in today's issue (see the "cruise ships" questions halfway down the page):
US schools don't have to discourage kids from taking math- the students don't want to take it in the first place. American kids have to feel like they're good at something to be interested in it. So they can be good in english class because they know how to read/write and can memorize some grammar rules. Math doesn't come as easily, and the kids don't want to take the time to work at it. Once they get to high school, they think they're not good at math and don't want to take it for fear their gpa goes down and they can't get into college.
I'm not sure the mothers would care too much. Assuming the drunk astronauts got the shuttle off the ground, the mothers' children shouldn't be in danger.
I wouldn't be so quick to get on your "I'm a physician" high horse. Of course physicians use computers in their work. But when it comes to making diagnoses, there is plenty of evidence that physicians resist using computer aids:
Kaplan B. Evaluating informatics applications: Clinical decision support systems literature review. Int J Med Inform. 2001;64:15-37.
Overhage JM, Tierney WM, McDonald CJ. Computer reminders to implement preventive care guidelines for hospitalized patients. Arch Intern Med. 1996;156:1551-6.
Rocha BHSC, Christenson JC, Evans RS, Gardner RM. Clinicians' response to computerized detection of infections. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2001;8:117-25.
I RTFA, but I can't find the "there is a direct, causal relationship" quote anywhere. Did the researcher actually say that??? It doesn't sound like something a good researcher would say, especially considering the prestige of the New England Journal of Medicine.
In my experience, $39 is a fairly typical price for a journal article. This is why the popularity of open access journals is increasing. The publishers do not do the research and do not review the papers, but they are the ones making money off the research. Meanwhile, the taxpayers have to pay twice: once to fund the research, and again to read the results of the research.
It appears that the article has not yet been published but is posted online in advance. Also, Samuel Weiss is the last author of seven. I find it a little weird that CBC article calls them "Sam Weiss's findings," as if he were the only one working on it.
I've lived in places where they would tell you not to move your car, so that it is easier for the cops to decide who caused the accident. I think some people won't move their car because, if they do, the guilty driver can lie and blame the accident on other drivers.
The problem with only publishing in open access journals is that they may not be considered the "best" in some fields. In my field, the most respected journals still cost money. I'd like to think that the quality of my work matters more than the journal in which it appears, but I know plenty of colleagues who would look at where I published and never read the article itself. Maybe this won't be such a big deal for me after tenure...
That said, I would love to see all journals become open access. The publishers make a killing off of research they didn't perform.
Obviously a great development, but I wondered what the false alarm rate was. The device can detect 98% of blood clots, but how often does it say there is a blood clot when there actually isn't? False alarms could lead to costly, unnecessary surgeries that insurance (at least, insurance in the US) may not cover.
Slashdot Mirror
Al Gore created both the internet and world wide web, you idiots!
The National Hockey League and the state of West Virginia.
If you're an ER doc, what makes you qualified to criticize their statistics?
1) It is impressive that they managed to recruit so many patients for such a complicated study, and I don't think their sample size is that small in the first place.
2) If you do a power analysis, it won't tell you whether the 18% difference is "real" after you've already established statistical significance.
3) Regarding intravenous thrombolytics: So the 28% vs 23% is "not all that different". But could it make a difference to a few patients? The "lousy p-value" (p=.043) indicates a significant difference at alpha=.05, so I have no idea why you call it lousy.
Your post basically showed that ER docs will use the year of stats classes that they took in school to interpret research any damn way they want to.
Grammar at its worst.
How long before they start killing the falsely accused with this laser?
America's smartest columnist in Parade magazine, Marilyn vos Savant, answered this sort of question in today's issue (see the "cruise ships" questions halfway down the page):
http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2008/edition_03-09-2008/Ask_Marilyn
She seems to think that cruise ships dumping crap in the ocean is not a big deal (not that her opinion carries any weight...)
US schools don't have to discourage kids from taking math- the students don't want to take it in the first place. American kids have to feel like they're good at something to be interested in it. So they can be good in english class because they know how to read/write and can memorize some grammar rules. Math doesn't come as easily, and the kids don't want to take the time to work at it. Once they get to high school, they think they're not good at math and don't want to take it for fear their gpa goes down and they can't get into college.
I used to have many things stored across 34 floppies. I could never complete the install, though, because disk 33 was always corrupt.
Can I get a "LaTeX" in the house!
And the worst part of it all... you can't complain for fear of the airline throwing your ass off the flight.
I dropped music for a science PhD... I hope that one day I might find the time between work and family to resume rocking and coercing young ladies.
I'm not sure the mothers would care too much. Assuming the drunk astronauts got the shuttle off the ground, the mothers' children shouldn't be in danger.
I wouldn't be so quick to get on your "I'm a physician" high horse. Of course physicians use computers in their work. But when it comes to making diagnoses, there is plenty of evidence that physicians resist using computer aids:
Kaplan B. Evaluating informatics applications: Clinical decision support systems literature review. Int J Med Inform. 2001;64:15-37.
Overhage JM, Tierney WM, McDonald CJ. Computer reminders to implement preventive care guidelines for hospitalized patients. Arch Intern Med. 1996;156:1551-6.
Rocha BHSC, Christenson JC, Evans RS, Gardner RM. Clinicians' response to computerized detection of infections. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2001;8:117-25.
I RTFA, but I can't find the "there is a direct, causal relationship" quote anywhere. Did the researcher actually say that??? It doesn't sound like something a good researcher would say, especially considering the prestige of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The physicists don't really want to find god, it's just the only way they can get research funding under the bush administration.
"So long, and thanks for all the fish."
In my experience, $39 is a fairly typical price for a journal article. This is why the popularity of open access journals is increasing. The publishers do not do the research and do not review the papers, but they are the ones making money off the research. Meanwhile, the taxpayers have to pay twice: once to fund the research, and again to read the results of the research.
It appears that the article has not yet been published but is posted online in advance. Also, Samuel Weiss is the last author of seven. I find it a little weird that CBC article calls them "Sam Weiss's findings," as if he were the only one working on it.
I've lived in places where they would tell you not to move your car, so that it is easier for the cops to decide who caused the accident. I think some people won't move their car because, if they do, the guilty driver can lie and blame the accident on other drivers.
The problem with only publishing in open access journals is that they may not be considered the "best" in some fields. In my field, the most respected journals still cost money. I'd like to think that the quality of my work matters more than the journal in which it appears, but I know plenty of colleagues who would look at where I published and never read the article itself. Maybe this won't be such a big deal for me after tenure...
That said, I would love to see all journals become open access. The publishers make a killing off of research they didn't perform.
You can blame the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation for making ISS computers with attitude.
Obviously a great development, but I wondered what the false alarm rate was. The device can detect 98% of blood clots, but how often does it say there is a blood clot when there actually isn't? False alarms could lead to costly, unnecessary surgeries that insurance (at least, insurance in the US) may not cover.