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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 1, 2023

Happy New Year!

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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If I wanted to read 10k (or more) words to learn how to be less wrong about healthcare, where might I start?

(and yes I know you asked for a general primer but the point is to build knowledge of the unexpected complexity).

Here's an example-

https://old.reddit.com/r/Residency/comments/104bwb4/why_was_damar_hamlin_in_the_sicu_after_his/

Why is Damar in a SICU (Surgical Intensive Care Unit) - some people are saying that's best practice, some people are saying that's best quality of care, some people are saying that's because of the resources specifically at UC and some people are saying it is because the case is high profile. And you can find someone saying the opposite for each of those. Everybody knows what they are talking about.

No way to know unless you work there and were involved and some combination of those answers is probably correct.

Stuff is very resource and facility dependent and a lot of things don't have strong consensus.

I learned how to effectively grade scientific literature by looking for places where you'd see the hordes of "SOMEONE IS SAYING SOMETHING WRONG ON THE INTERNET" types and seeing what they said, and then after years of that picking up the skills myself.

Go to /r/medicine or other similar places, look for the hot button stuff, see what people say and complain about. At first you'll be missing context but you'll pick it up. Bonus points if you also go to the other places with different levels of training like /r/residency.

Be aware of the biases of the various areas though (anything remotely political is DOA on meddit, it's appropriate to hate midlevels but the residency subreddit takes it a little far).

Very common for industry adjacent people to do this, you'll see consultants, tech people, and lawyers pop in with their expertise because they are following or work or because of a partner.

Most of the mistakes people make are pretty basic- assuming it's simple and easy, or because they are falling for one of the agenda pushers (including us).

If you look closely you'll probably see one of those situations where three people with over 20 years of training and who very are on top of it are articulately arguing over if something like if "is a bandaid is actually a good idea or not" and you'll be like Jesus this is a nightmare.