Wednesday 31 March 2021

Mathematics in daily life of a clinician/medical student

Currently, the utilization of mathematics in a clinical setting is extremely helpful but doesn't utilize many complex calculation methods, and when sometimes it does then luckily we have good calculator tools. With the increase in digital health penetration, the scope for computational analytics is increasing and giving hope for more ways to collect data from the patients for delivering better clinical outcomes. This growth in digital health penetration and data science research in the medical domain is a good reason for clinicians to develop an interest in mathematics and hopefully be able to perform better in future, especially if a doctor has an interest as an innovator/researcher then maths become extremely helpful for sure.


I am sharing below a few basic ways in which clinicians/medical students apply maths on a regular basis (1-7) and way ahead (8,9).


1- Calculating scores - Various parameters have to be checked and graded and then all values added together to find a score which helps in decision making. 

eg. APGAR Score https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apgar_score 


2 - Calculating various values - Derive value of a parameter based on a few other parameters. 

eg. BMI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index



3 - Plotting charts - Plotting values in charts to follow the change in parameters.

eg. Growth Chart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_chart


4 - Chart patterns - variations in parameters creating patterns in 2D charts.

eg. Fever Charts, ECG  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_fever 





5 - Complex calculations - Calculations involving trigonometry, calculus, logarithm, etc. are nearly always used as online/offline software calculators. 
eg. Mean Arterial Pressure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_arterial_pressure


6 - Statistics - While doing or understanding research. Very important in all aspects of practice of evidence-based medicine, epidemiology, etc.

Eg. median, p-value, ANOVA test, etc.


7 - Analytical thinking (all topics above included here, helps in making the right meaning from information) - PICO, Pubmed, and Critical appraisal tools/checklists are used.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PICO_process

https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/resources/ebm-tools/critical-appraisal-tools


8 - Mathematical Thinking - It needs to grow in the medical community for being in a better position to not just adopt (both direct or indirect use cases for better clinical outcome) but also improve the upcoming technologies from Data Science/ AI, Genomics, IoMT, Big Data Analytics. Physician Scientists are already working on these and even helping build FDA approved new technologies for medical use.

WHO guideline recommendations on digital interventions for health system strengthening

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/311977/WHO-RHR-19.8-eng.pdf?ua=1


FDA-approved A.I.-based algorithms

https://medicalfuturist.com/fda-approved-ai-based-algorithms/


9 - To infinity and beyond! - there is no end to mathematics and we know very little about the human body, mathematics is an extremely powerful tool to utilize in understanding that and minimize human suffering. 


10 - Pattern Recognition - Patterns are everywhere, and the more experienced the clinical is, the more patterns they have analyzed and have built their intuition to get insights from history (Story) and examinations (Sign and Symptoms = Sensory Patterns) and find the correct name for the patterns based on their relations (Diagnosis). The Sensory patterns have got names to encode and correctly communicate information from one clinician's to another, and this language/knowledge of patterns is continuously increasing and a key skill to acquire to be a good physician.




PS: what will be the basic notes of human health as music have 7 and what will be the language of patterns representation style to communicate it so precisely from one musician (clinician) to another and even reproduce precisely with an electronic device.