The full title of Gerd Gigerenzer’s book is Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions [Amazon], which is exactly what makes this book so relevant, not just to the everyday reader, but to the medical reader. We make decisions every day in the medical field that range from the complex of intubating someone with low reserve or difficult airway anatomy to the less life-and-death decision of when to best time a quick food break between seeing patients. Of course, we also help our patients make very complex decisions, especially in the ED when time is short but risk can be high. And it certainly is not an easy task to attempt to bring family members up to speed on the ins and outs of intubation vs BiPAP or the complex statistics associated with radiation exposure when working up a pregnant patient with a potential pulmonary embolism. Gigerenzer’s book does a beautiful job of helping the reader not only understand how to break down the complexity of risk, but also how to go about explaining it.

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