ABSTRACT
Individuals rarely grow to adulthood and middle age without having some experience related to serious illness. The education of physicians is long, elaborate, and expensive, combining didactic instruction, tutorials, seminars, and gradually increasing responsibility for patient care under the supervision of experienced clinicians. This chapter describes the information processing approach that underlies most of the research characterized as “medical problem solving.” It also describes the normative model approach underlying most of the research characterized as “medical decision making.” The information processing approach is based on the metaphor that, like a computer, the mind is a general information processing device. Conflicts and tension between expected utility theory and actual decision behavior are a major component of current research on clinical decision making. The roots of formal approaches to medical decision making lie in economic theory, whereas those of medical problem solving lie in cognitive psychology and computer science.
