Probability, statistics and medical decisions Part-II

Dr Ajit Bhagwat

“OK. But can you do something to reduce that risk further down from 4%?”

“We take every precaution to avoid complications and also make sure that we have everything to deal with the potential complications. However, some things are beyond our control and complications do occur.“

“Doctor, you must have done many such procedures before and I trust you.”

“Well, we have done about 50 such procedures so far and have had only one major complication.”

“That’s great! So, your complication rate is only two percent. But you said earlier that it’s 4 percent.“

“That’s the figure derived from the medical literature where a large number of such patients are done by experts. They arrived at this figure of four percent.“

“Does that mean you are better than those experts?”

“No. It only means I am probably not worse than them. The figure from the experts has been published three years ago. Since then, there have been a lot of advances in techniques, hardware, medicines and the equipment which has further fine-tuned the results. Medicine is a moving target because of rapidly advancing science. Benchmarks of the recent past may become obsolete quickly.”

“I get what you are saying doctor. Thanks for simplifying things!”

(The writer is senior cardiologist).