C L Bosk
The social practices surrounding diagnosis and management decisions are analyzed from a sociological perspective as occupational rituals. These rituals are part of rounds and conferences, and they assist physicians in managing uncertainty, making treatment decisions, and evaluating outcomes. Physicians use eight key strategies to manage uncertainty: hedged assertions, probability reasoning, a focus on uncertainty as a research problem, requests for consultations, Socratic teaching, deciding not to decide, gallows humor, and hyperrealism...
July 10, 1980: New England Journal of Medicine