It’s actually an interesting point. When I first leant to measure blood pressure manually with a mercury sphygmomanometer and a stethoscope, it was usually done to the nearest 5 or 10mm. It simply wasn’t possible to do it reliably more accurately than that. Does measuring it today to an accuracy of 1mm with a digital automatic machine make any difference to treatment or outcome? Probably not.
"So can I review the graphs and tables of data you've amassed? I'll be sure to include you in the authorship of the case study paper my med student is writing."
He must be a neurologist - very precise but not very useful.
ReplyDeleteI doubt I would use his BP machine!!
ReplyDeletebobbie
Is that the mean, the median, or the mode? Do the measurements form a normal distribution? What are the skewness and kurtosis?
ReplyDelete"I'm upping your daily dosage of lisinopril from 8.743 grams to 9.208 grams."
ReplyDelete"That's before I apply the leeches."
ReplyDeleteOf course that is the average. The figures are a bit different if you look at the mean, or the max and mins.
ReplyDeleteIt’s actually an interesting point. When I first leant to measure blood pressure manually with a mercury sphygmomanometer and a stethoscope, it was usually done to the nearest 5 or 10mm. It simply wasn’t possible to do it reliably more accurately than that. Does measuring it today to an accuracy of 1mm with a digital automatic machine make any difference to treatment or outcome? Probably not.
ReplyDelete"So can I review the graphs and tables of data you've amassed? I'll be sure to include you in the authorship of the case study paper my med student is writing."
ReplyDeleteLately, about a mile in 3.5 minutes because there's a lot of pressure to improve.
ReplyDelete