People use arguments to justify their claims. Computer systems use explanations to justify their conclusions. We are developing WOZ, an explanation framework that justifies the conclusions of a clinical decision-support system. WOZ's central component is the explanation strategy that decides what information justifies a claim. The strategy uses Toulmin's argument structure to define pieces of i...

Making patients protagonists of decisions about their care is a primacy in the 21st century medical ethics. Precisely, to favor shared treatment decisions potentially enables patients’ autonomy and self-determination, and protects patients’ rights to make decisions about their own future care. To fully accomplish this goal, medicine should take into account the complexity of the healthcare deci...

BACKGROUND In mainland China, awareness of disease of elderly cancer patients largely relies on the patients' families. We developed a staged procedure to improve their awareness of disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS Participants were 224 elderly cancer patients from 9 leading hospitals across Southern China. A questionnaire was given to the oncologists in charge of each patient to evaluate the i...

This paper discusses how limited ability to assess patient risk of illness and predict treatment response may affect the welfare achieved by adherence to clinical practice guidelines and by decentralized clinical practice. Manski explains why predictive ability has been limited, calling attention to imperfections in clinical judgment and to questionable methodological practices in the research ...