Tag: Steve Hatch

Review – Snowball in a Blizzard

Posted August 2, 2021 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Snowball in a Blizzard by Steven HatchSnowball in a Blizzard, Steve Hatch

Snowball in a Blizzard is a great examination of something that goes overlooked far too often — or blown out of proportion in ways that serve weird fringe agendas: the fact that very little in medicine is certain, and it’s not possible to put numbers on many/most things about biology. People forget that when looking for certainty about how to reduce their risk of cancer, or blow it up into something quite different when they want to argue against the importance of vaccines… and it’s really important to understand why there is uncertainty in medicine and what it really means, if you want to make truly informed decisions about your own healthcare. Informing people about this is Steve Hatch’s aim here, and I think he does a great job.

There are one or two points which have suffered a bit in time — for instance, the Rosenhan experiments that he leans on heavily to make a point or two have been discredited, with Susannah Cahalan’s The Great Pretender arguing pretty convincingly that Rosenhan falsified much of the data in his study, which was never run in the way he described. There are also some references to SARS, which are pretty apocalyptic… But broadly speaking, Hatch’s points hold true.

There’s some really fascinating stuff here that I knew very little about. For example, screening mammography — mammograms for people who have not discovered lumps or had any other symptoms of breast cancer — is, on balance, probably harmful for most people. This doesn’t mean that diagnostic mammography is a bad thing, but the indiscriminate screening of everyone in certain groups includes far too many people who are at too low a risk of cancer. Thus, false positives are common, and a lot of mental distress results — and sometimes worse, with people even ending up having unnecessary mastectomies.

Hatch explains the statistics underlying evidence-based medicine really well. I don’t have a good instinctive grasp of statistics, and never have, and this book helped some of these concepts lodge in my brain — which was nice, because I had an exam coming up at that point on exactly some of these types of statistics. I think it would be really useful for anyone who wants to understand better how uncertainty in medicine works and what that might mean for making decisions about your own care.

Rating: 4/5

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WWW Wednesday

Posted May 13, 2021 by Nicky in General / 0 Comments

Welp, haven’t written any of my backlog of reviews yet, but I’m still here, and I just handed in my assignment — meaning I’ve got an exam left, on 1st June, and then I’ll be free for a while. Maybe that means either now or once the exam’s done, I’ll have a bit of time to catch up on blogging.

Whatever happens, the reading never totally stops, though.

Cover of Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs by Lisa RandallWhat are you currently reading?

Non-fiction: Still reading Judith Flanders’ The Invention of Murder, and now also reading Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, by Lisa Randall. I’ve heard good things about it, but I’m distracted by the title and wondering where the dinosaurs come in. Right now I’m in the middle of my umpteenieth explanation of the Big Bang, none of which ever make the details stick in my head.

Fiction: I’ve picked up Plain Bad Heroines, by emily m. danforth. I had not realised she was also the author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which I’ve always meant to try, but it sounds like this is very different in a lot of ways. I’m very curious to know to what extent there’s a supernatural element here… (don’t spoil me.)

Cover of Snowball in a Blizzard by Steven HatchWhat have you recently finished reading?

I feel like I have the memory of a goldfish, and could not honestly tell you right now what — ooh, that’s a nice bridge, I’ve never seen that before.

Okay, family jokes about goldfish/three-second memories aside, I finished up Snowball in a Blizzard by Steve Hatch, which had some very good insights into both how uncertain medicine actually is (there are few certainties, just probabilities and sometimes mere possibilities, even in established, commonly-used medicine) and how to handle that.

(Ooh, that’s a nice bridge, I’ve never seen that before!)

Cover of Magic Bites by Ilona AndrewsWhat will you be reading next?

I don’t really know. I’m kind of tempted toward a reread; I stopped reading the Kate Daniels series for a bit too long and lost my place again, so I think I might start that series again — why not? It’s fun. Then I’m also tempted to reread Made to Kill, by Adam Christopher, since I don’t think I ever did read the third book in that series.

So that’s me. What are you reading?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted May 6, 2021 by Nicky in General / 1 Comment

Well, folks, it’s been a while! I’m still really tired and not quite sure about what I want out of blogging and reviewing, but I am working on sorting out my review backlog and trying again. I seem to say this all the time, though.

How’s it going?

In any case, I thought I’d do the weekly reading update this week, since I’ve written it up for Pillowfort!

Cover of Snowball in a Blizzard by Steven HatchWhat are you currently reading?

Non-fiction: The Invention of Murder, by Judith Flanders, and A Snowball in a Blizzard, by Steve Hatch. The former is a discussion of how murder stories in all branches of entertainment (tabloid newspapers, ballads, novels, plays, poems, etc) developed during the Victorian period, and is fairly dense but enjoyable. The latter is a discussion of uncertainty in medicine and how important it is to understand that most things in modern medicine are not certainties but are instead what we hope for based on the balance of the evidence — for example, digging into the fact that screening mammography actually probably does more harm than good in a large demographic.

Fiction: A Murderous Relation, by Deanna Raybourn, and The Library of the Death, by T.L. Huchu. The former is ticking along great: maybe a bit less compulsive and attention-grabbing for me than some of the previous books in the series, but fun. The latter… I’m not yet clicking with the narrative voice, but I’m not very far in and haven’t got a good feel for the setting yet (e.g. how magic is viewed within the story).

Cover of White Bread by Aaron Bobrow-StrainWhat have you recently finished reading?

I’m having trouble calling to mind what the last fiction book I read was, which is not a great sign for whatever book it was, but I think it’s mostly that I’m kind of in a non-fiction mood. The last non-fiction book I finished was White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf, by Aaron Bobrow-Strain, which was actually recommended for me by someone else on Pillowfort who likes this kind of non-fiction, and which I really enjoyed. I’d love to read a blog post or review that relates the themes surrounding white/brown bread in the US to the situation in the UK, which I’m sure shares many similarities and some differences. It’s amazing how the stuff we take for granted can open up huge topics — not just healthy eating but racism and issues of class. I love it.

Cover of What it Means When A Man Falls From The Sky by Lesley Nneka ArimahWhat will you be reading next?

As usual, I don’t have a very strong idea. Next month’s choice for the book club I run on Habitica is What it Means When A Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah, so I should probably pick that up… or I’m being very tempted by the third book in Tasha Alexander’s Lady Emily series, or a few potential rereads, or… there are so many options.

What are you currently reading?

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