“If you can keep your head. . .”: Clinical Decision Making in the Age of Evidence-Based Medicine Dis Colon Rectum Vol. 47, No. 4, April 2004.

This article presents the author's views on ability of clinical decision making of surgeons. Research into clinical decision making will allow us to teach more effectively and to better select trainees who can acquire clinical judgment and decision- making abilities in a reasonable period of time. We need to assess potential trainees to determine not just their cognitive capacity and their three-dimensional thinking and manual dexterity necessary to be a surgeon but also to identify those personality characteristics that predict successful development of appropriate clinical decision making.