They were told that interviewers were not necessarily advocates of the use of formal methods. There were 10 questions, reproduced in an appendix to the paper. They worked in a variety of settings. These results mirror the reaction of just about any medical audience to similar questions. Diagnostic tests are presented in ways that are neither intuitive nor useful.
Formal training needs to be improved.
Published information is mostly useless, because it usually fails to reflect the patient population in which the test is being used. Diagnostic testing needs a new beginning. If the methods we have of expressing test accuracy don't cut it, then we must find new ones that do. They must be understandable by the doc on the Clapham omnibus, relevant to a wide range of clinical situations and patient populations, easy to use in everyday practice, and instantly available. MC Reid, DA Lane, AR Feinstein.