Statistics in medicine: a risky business?

Three fundamental problems encountered by statisticians in the training of  undergraduate medical (MBChB) students and at a personal level by qualified doctors are:

• poor retention of key statistical concepts such as confidence interval absolute risk relative risk odds ratio p-value statistical power and significance level;
• a lack of efficacy in communicating notions such as relative and absolute risk and more generally the findings of systematic reviews to patients;
• and a lack of professional training in the use the statistical findings presented in medical journals to make informed decisions on the optimal choice for the patient.