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7 - Hypothesis-Testing and Crafting Patient-Specific Decision Trees

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2024

Joseph F. Goldberg
Affiliation:
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York
Stephen M. Stahl
Affiliation:
University of California San Diego
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Summary

Formulating and empirically testing hypotheses lies at the core of the scientific method, and is a cornerstone for practicing evidence-based medicine – especially if and when the evidence base for a given problem may not yet be so well developed in the literature. Whether we realize it or not, every clinical encounter is essentially the buildup to generating a hypothesis – a framework for explaining how and why a set of problems arose, and then figuring out whether the available information supports or refutes the proposed explanation. A hypothesis is a testable, falsifiable question posed about the association between two variables.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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