Ninety-Nine Lessons in Critical Thinking was designed to enhance the reader’s awareness of how they think and how decisions involving patients and scientific matters can be influenced by word choice, preconceived ideas, framing, biases, and inattentiveness. Entertaining and informative stories from the author’s 45 year clinical and scientific experience and from the history of medicine and science are presented to illustrate ways in which critical thinking skills can be developed and awareness of thought processes enhanced.
The evolution of human learning and awareness is used to illustrate the fundamental nature of the concepts, and emphasis is placed on ways to enhance awareness of how our attention and words influence thought. Medical professionals (including medical students, residents, postgraduate fellows, graduate students, dentists, and nurse practitioners) are faced with an enormous amount of information coming from scientific literature, computerized patient records and artificial intelligence. Methods for dealing with this avalanche of data and ways to retain focus on key patient and scientific matters are explored, and practical suggestions to improve doctor-patient interactions are included, with a focus on approaching care regarding the patient’s life context and personhood.
The ninety-nine lessons demonstrate how to enhance understanding of the humanity of both the patient and the doctor and how awareness of thought is essential for innovative and compassionate care and research.
Review
“If I could send a time capsule to my younger self containing but one item, it would surely be Ninety-Nine Lessons. In the form of ninety-nine lessons, highly entertaining stories, Friedland intertwines the wisdom of sages with life experiences to give needed advice to the young scientist or physician. In a world full of facts, this primer clarifies the limits of knowledge and those seeking to extend the frontiers. The greatest contribution of this book is perspective and encouragement in the face of the fact heavy curriculum of graduate and medical school.” — George Perry , PhD, Professor of Neurobiology, University of Texas San Antonio
“In an age of information overload, this book teaches us why and how to do critical thinking and how to apply it to our research and practice. The author, Prof. Robert Friedland’s long, warm, and sincere gaze toward patients, and his sometimes voracious (he uses the word ‘fierce’) pursuit of learning, weave a gem of words that provide physicians and researchers with invaluable experiences that cannot be gained from medical or scientific books. Now, I have to go back to my practice to face the question Prof. Friedland asked me: Why do strokes usually occur on only one side of the brain?” — Dr. Masafumi Ihara , MD PhD, Stroke Neurologist, National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center, Osaka, Japan
“Reading this book reminded me of the lecture on introduction to internal medicine that began with the Hippocratic Oath. Written by Dr. Friedland, who has extensive clinical experience, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in clinical medicine.” — Takeshi Tabira , MD, author of the Japanese translation of Robert P. Friedland: Unaging, the Four Factors That Impact How You Age, Cambridge University Press, 2022, Professor of Neurology, Juntendo University, Tokyo, Japan
About the Author
Robert P. Friedland, MD, is a cognitive neurologist devoted to the study of brain disorders of aging. He is the Mary and Mason Rudd Chair and Professor of Neurology, Anatomy, and Neurobiology at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. He is a graduate of CCNY (1969) and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine (1973). He worked in the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and was Chief of the Section on Brain Aging of the NIA, NIH (1985-1990). At Case Western Reserve University, he was Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Radiology (1990-2008). His work is focused on Alzheimer’s and related disorders, with collaborators in the USA, the UK, Japan and Israel.
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