Making Sense of Medical Statistics
A Bite Sized Visual Guide

A bite-sized visual interactive guide to medical statistics for the beginner.

Munier Hossain (Author)

9781108978156, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 October 2021

160 pages
23.4 x 15.8 x 1 cm, 0.35 kg

'The modern practice in orthopaedic and trauma surgery is a completely different practice to that which many of us grew up with and is now firmly founded on research and evidence. And this evidence itself is built around scientific method and statistical analysis. This excellent book provides a comprehensive guide to biostatistics for the orthopaedic surgeon and aspiring clinician scientist. Through clear explanations of complex concepts the author succeeds in simplifying the difficult and I am sure this will become an essential reference for all involved in orthopaedic surgery.' Professor Ben Ollivere, Professor of Orthopaedic Trauma, University of Nottingham, UK

Do you want to know what a parametric test is and when not to perform one? Do you get confused between odds ratios and relative risks? Want to understand the difference between sensitivity and specificity? Would like to find out what the fuss is about Bayes' theorem? Then this book is for you! Physicians need to understand the principles behind medical statistics. They don't need to learn the formula. The software knows it already! This book explains the fundamental concepts of medical statistics so that the learner will become confident in performing the most commonly used statistical tests. Each chapter is rich in anecdotes, illustrations, questions, and answers. Not enough? There is more material online with links to free statistical software, webpages, multimedia content, a practice dataset to get hands-on with data analysis, and a Single Best Answer questionnaire for the exam.

Preface
Acknowledgements
How to get the best out of this book
1. Medicine and numbers: what is the connection?
2. Measuring a variable: what is the difference between eye colour and height
3. Summarising data: communicating easily
4. Why average and range is not always enough: standard deviation and standard error
5. The normal distribution: what's so 'normal' about it?
6. Confidence interval: what is your guesstimate?
7. Innocent until proven guilty! The null hypothesis
8. Errors in hypothesis tests: learn your ? from your ?
9. The randomized controlled trial: why does it have to be random?
10. Choosing a statistical test: to t or not to t?
11. Finding the odd one out: the ANOVA test
12. Categorically different? The Chi-Squared test
13. If the line fits: correlation and linear regression
14. Hindsight is 20/20: logistic regression
15. Don't risk the odds. risk vs odds as the outcome measure
16. I will survive! Time to event data analysis
17. High-ceiling or low threshold? Accuracy of a diagnostic test
18. Apples or oranges? Meta-analysis of selected studies
19. Lies, damned lies and statistics: untangling facts from fiction!
Glossary
Appendix 1. Are you ready to test yourself? Single Best Answer questionnaire
Appendix 2. Software and practice problems
Appendix 3. Practice database
Appendix 4. References and further reading
Appendix 5. Further resources.

Subject Areas: Probability & statistics [PBT], Medical study & revision guides & reference material [MR], Epidemiology & medical statistics [MBNS]