An Introduction to Medical Statistics (Oxford Medical Publications)

Rating:
Summary: Start Here for Medical Statistics
Review: Clearly and logically set out starting with the reasons for medical statistics and how studies are designed and moving logically to the methods used. All practicing doctors need to know something about medical statistics. This is a very good place to start. It is written for non-mathematicians but has enough mathematics to justify the information presented and stimulate further interest. It is a relatively short book with clear logical explanations rather than flashy illustrations and computer graphics. Also provides exercises, essential in all mathematical subjects.

Rating:
Summary: Start Here for Medical Statistics
Review: Clearly and logically set out starting with the reasons for medical statistics and how studies are designed and moving logically to the methods used. All practicing doctors need to know something about medical statistics. This is a very good place to start. It is written for non-mathematicians but has enough mathematics to justify the information presented and stimulate further interest. It is a relatively short book with clear logical explanations rather than flashy illustrations and computer graphics. Also provides exercises, essential in all mathematical subjects.

Rating:
Summary: another fine statistics text for medical students
Review: This is the second edition of an excellent introductory text for medical students similar to Doug Altman's. Bland covers the basics: designing clinical trials and epidemiological studies, data collection, summarizing data, basic probability, standard errors and confidence intervals along with tests of significance (both parametric and nonparametric). Various types of regression methods are covered and this edition adds Cox proportional hazards models and meta-analysis. Many exercises and examples are taken from Bland's 20 years of experience as a medical statistician. It is noteworthy for dealing with sample size issues in Chapter 18. Mortality statistics and life tables are covered in Chapter 16.

The book is not quite as advanced as Altman's.