Numbers can lie…if you don’t understand statistics

MEDHINI RAMESH – Biostatistics is often at the backbone of medical decision-making, yet its role is generally  overlooked and this may be hurting patients. Biostatistics can help analyze research, serve as a guide for testing patients, and help doctors better diagnose and treat patients with more accuracy and less worry. However, doctors across the United States fail to understand what the true significance a statistic represents and means. The consequences of this type of statistical illiteracy, especially in doctors, could be catastrophic. 

In a study conducted in 2013, researchers found that approximately ninety percent of residents fail to understand what p-values and positive predictive values mean. These are concepts that are taught in basic introductory statistics courses, and while not all doctors take on research or need to understand higher-level statistics, almost all doctors will encounter it when they read published studies and articles. Doctors are expected to convey their knowledge to understandably statistically illiterate patients. 

In another study from 2020, doctors more often than not overestimated the number of patients who would actually have breast cancer after receiving a positive test result on a mammogram. This can cause excessive stress for patients and may cause them to opt for unnecessary procedures. It is also difficult to trust the efficiency of new methods or drugs when the doctors who will perform these procedures and prescribe them do not fully comprehend the results of the studies they are reading.

Attention to medical statistics is increasing in the premed and medical world. As most medical schools require math in their prerequisites, many students already take statistics or biostatistics. More advisors and professors recommend their pre-health students to take biostatistics based on how many studies have come out about physician statistical illiteracy. Moreover, these studies should encourage pre-health students to pay attention to basic statistics courses.

Copy Editor: Akshay Nair

Photography Source: Shweta Mistry