NOTE: This event takes place in the Eastern Time Zone.
ALL are welcome to join us for a lunch lecture “Bias in Medical Data,” with Dr. Timothy Von Fange. Dr. Von Fange will be speaking on how the bias that occurs in medical data affects how doctors practice medicine.
Food and drinks will be provided. RSVPs are appreciated. Park in the Marian University College of Osteopathic Medicine parking lot.
POST-EVENT SUMMARY: An intimate group of four students enjoyed lunch and listened as Dr. Von Fange delivered a great lecture on all the different types of biases in journal articles: selection bias, recall bias, chronology bias, performance bias, citation bias, confounding bias, etc. Recent data states that 33-80% of meta-analyses are found to have an industry tie. He then went on to talk about “subtle bias,” where an article’s author may have an indirect interest (career advancement, political advancement, personal associations).
Dr. Von Fange then talked about the Patient-Centered Medical Home and a few studies showing how “efficient” it was. He really went into the numbers on these studies and it was clear there was “data misrepresentation.” One of these studies for the patient-centered medical home actually showed that health spending accounts were more effective, but it was never mentioned in the discussion of the article. Dr. Von Fange concluded, when reading a journal article there should be a healthy amount of skepticism and to scrutinize research data before believing it all.