Blog Posts

The Path to Useful and Trustworthy Clinical Prediction Models
8 min
Clinical Prediction Modeling
Clinical prediction modeling, using data to predict patients’ clinical outcomes and improve medical decision-making, can be incredibly powerful. Modern medicine is awash in…
Jan 31, 2025

External Controls in Oncology Clinical Trials
21 min
Causation & Clinical Trials
External controls are, for better or worse, common in pediatric oncology clinical trials. I don’t love them. They are dangerous. However, there are arguments in their favor.…
Jan 20, 2025

Gratitude reduces the complexity of modern life to make it more meaningful
6 min
Musings & Meditations
The world is increasingly filled with noise and nonsense, making it difficult to see what is valuable amid a torrent of trivialities. With the rise of social media, our…
Jan 1, 2024

The Epistemic Arc - a conceptual map about how to learn from data in the presence of uncertainty
13 min
Statistics & Heuristics
Learning from data is hard.
Jun 4, 2022

Pediatric cancer treatment abandonment: a tragic but preventable event
5 min
Global PHO
A tragic reality that pediatric oncology providers in resource-constrained commonly encounter: after a child with cancer starts treatment, many families leave and never…
Apr 10, 2022

How to measure anything in Global Health: 5. Calibration techniques
3 min
Data Science + Global Health
In my previous essay, I discussed how calibrating your judgments is a crucial step when measuring anything in global health.
Apr 7, 2022

How to measure anything in Global Health: 4. Calibrate your judgment
3 min
Data Science + Global Health
Your personal calibration is one of the most important measurement skills you’ve never heard of.
Apr 6, 2022

How to measure anything in Global Health: 3. The Definition of Risk
3 min
Data Science + Global Health
What are the chances that survival from a cancer decrease after introducing a new treatment in your clinic?
Apr 5, 2022

How to measure anything in Global Health: 2. The universal approach to measurement
3 min
Data Science + Global Health
If you want to use data to improve treatment delivery in global health, all of your measurements should support decisions.
Apr 4, 2022

How to measure anything in Global Health: 1. Foundations of Measurement
4 min
Data Science + Global Health
Can you measure the effect of adding a dietitian to your clinical service?
Apr 3, 2022

Distributed intelligence is the key to success for high-performing health systems in Global Health
3 min
Data Science + Global Health
Who would you rather have care for you: the world’s smartest doctor in a poorly-function health system or a mediocre doctor in a high-functioning health system?
Apr 2, 2022

Stochastic beasts and how to slay them - Part 1
4 min
Confident Uncertainty
What do the Balrogs, huge earthquakes, and nuclear war have in common?
Mar 25, 2022

Understanding the two types of uncertainty will help you live more confidently in a stochastic world
4 min
Confident Uncertainty
We live in a complex and often chaotic world. To live confidently, we have to know how to navigate uncertain paths.
Mar 24, 2022

Data science is a saddle for the epistemic rodeo: healthcare as a complex system
4 min
Data Science + Global Health
Healthcare is complicated. Healthcare is also complex. To use data science to improve treatment delivery in low-resource settings, it is important to understand in what way…
Mar 22, 2022

Let the data flow: how to move information to the people who need it in a Global Health organization
4 min
Data Science + Global Health
If a health facility is adequately staffed with doctors, nurses, and other providers, and it is well supplied with medicines and medical equipment, then it has everything it…
Mar 21, 2022

Three essential quality control practices to improve the reliability of Data Science in Global Health
3 min
Data Science + Global Health
Quality control (QC) of data is a grind, particularly for healthcare facilities with paper charts requiring manual collection. QC takes dedicated effort sustained over the…
Mar 20, 2022

Aristotle’s sage advice to improve Data Science in Global Health
3 min
Data Science + Global Health
Aristotle, the legendary Greek philosopher, has some advice for anyone trying to use data science in global health.
Mar 19, 2022

How to walk the unsexy path toward sophisticated Data Science in Global Health: Data Management
4 min
Data Science + Global Health
Data science has a data problem.
Mar 18, 2022
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