A history illustrating the complexity of medical decision making and
risk.
Still the leading cause of death worldwide, heart disease challenges
researchers, clinicians, and patients alike. Each day, thousands of
patients and their doctors make decisions about coronary angioplasty and
bypass surgery. In Broken Hearts David S. Jones sheds light on the
nature and quality of those decisions. He describes the debates over
what causes heart attacks and the efforts to understand such unforeseen
complications of cardiac surgery as depression, mental fog, and stroke.
Why do doctors and patients overestimate the effectiveness and
underestimate the dangers of medical interventions, especially when
doing so may lead to the overuse of medical therapies? To answer this
question, Jones explores the history of cardiology and cardiac surgery
in the United States and probes the ambiguities and inconsistencies in
medical decision making. Based on extensive reviews of medical
literature and archives, this historical perspective on medical decision
making and risk highlights personal, professional, and community
outcomes.