by Ellen Engelhardt, PhD; The Netherlands
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It’s almost time for the first hybrid SMDM meeting. A shoutout to the meeting co-chairs, Sarah Munro and Davene Wright, and the whole team working incredibly hard over many months to organize this meeting. As highlighted by SMDM President Olga Kostopoulou in her President’s Letter, the organizing committee has faced some tough challenges, but have gone above and beyond to put together a great meeting program. I hope many of you will be able to join in-person and enjoy meeting (new) colleagues, the lively debates during the sessions or afterwards, or just catching up at Dockside at Duke’s during the social event. If like me you’re unfortunately not able to go to Seattle, it’s still possible to participate. I highly recommend attending virtually. Virtual attendees will be able to follow a live stream of the sessions on a mix of topics and can also ask questions live. Also good to know, all participants will have access to the digital meeting content for up to a month after the meeting, so not having time is not a reason to miss out. |
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Ellen Engelhardt, PhD
Editor
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Aisha Langford, PhD
Deputy Editor
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The results of the Board elections are in. Congratulations to the new Officers and Trustees with their election!
President-Elect: Alan Schwartz
Vice-President-Elect: Ankur Pandya
Secretary-Treasurer-Elect: Scott LaJoie
International Trustee: Natalia Kunst
Trustee: Laura Scherer
Trustee: Channing Tate
To get you in the mood for the meeting (if you’re not already brimming over with excitement) or to read whilst you travel to Seattle, we have prepared a brief pre-conference newsletter. SMDM President Olga Kostopoulou, discusses the choice made for the upcoming Seattle meeting and looks at the future of SMDM meetings. Deputy Editor, Aisha Langford, asks “When Shared Decision Making May Not be the Answer” in her Hot Topics column. What do you think? There is great potential there for a lively debate with colleagues at the SMDM meeting or at the office. In the last MDM Poll, we asked you to share your thoughts on what kind of methods and other skill development courses SMDM could offer to help you further your skills a decision scientist; in this edition we report the results, take a look! Also, please take a moment to participate in the Education committee’s effort to generate a comprehensive list of available educational activities in Medical Decision Making. Finally, in the Member News section two very interesting recently published papers are highlighted. If you’ve also recently published an interesting paper, have other news you would like to share or want to write a column, get in touch (e.engelhardt@nki.nl).
To end, I would like to remember Dr. Murray Krahn who passed away July 1st. Dr. Krahn was an SMDM past President and cherished colleague and mentor to many in and outside of SMDM. Many shared their memories of him after his passing and the recurring theme was that he lived a wonderful, rich life, and went out of his way to enrichen the lives of others. May his memory be a blessing for all who loved him and whose life he touched. The next issue of the Newsletter will contain a fuller In Memoriam.
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By Olga Kostopoulou, PhD; United Kingdom
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My first opportunity to visit Seattle came in 2011, when my abstract was accepted for an oral presentation at the annual meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making. I was very excited to visit the city of Nirvana and Mudhoney, but, for reasons that I do not remember, I did not attend that meeting. This year, there are no grunge gigs in Seattle during 21-25 October (I checked!) but there is a conference we’ve all been waiting for. |
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Olga Kostopoulou, PhD
SMDM President
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Anticipation is rising, as we are preparing for our first hybrid meeting. To-date, both in-person and virtual registrations are very healthy and have exceeded our expectations! Our social event promises to be a relaxed evening held outside on the dock and looks to be well-attended too. When I took over the Presidency on 20th October 2021 at a virtual Business meeting, I talked about a vision of having hybrid annual meetings in the future. The membership appeared enthusiastic at the prospect. In my first column of the Newsletter, I wrote about finding a balance between live-streaming and pre-recording, given the prohibitive cost of live-streaming everything. The Seattle meeting will be our first attempt at finding that balance.
Live-streaming an in-person meeting in its entirety is much more costly than having a virtual-only meeting, because camera crews and equipment are required. With the Conference Chairs, Sarah Munroe and Davene Wright, and our Executive Director, Diane, we have spent hours trying to find ways to reduce meeting costs while boosting the hybrid character of the meeting. So, this is how the Seattle meeting is shaping up: we will live-stream all the sessions taking place in one hall (rather than all parallel sessions in all 3 halls) and have made sure that a mix of topics will be presented in that hall. Presenters who cannot attend in person will be brought in virtually live. Virtual attendees will be able to type in their questions in real time, and the session chairs will relate them to the speaker. Furthermore, all oral presentations and poster sessions will be posted online and will be available for a month, so virtual attendees who cannot attend in real time due to time difference (the conference is taking place on the West Coast so many sessions will be in the early hours of the morning for Europe) or for any other reason can view them in their own time.
I would also like to reiterate our wish to change the format and possibly the timing of our annual meetings. We would like to move from holding the meetings in big (and expensive!) hotels to university campuses. This change will provide us with more flexibility and lower costs to produce better hybrid meetings in the future. We are considering having only one meeting per year in rotating locations, and do away with two meetings (one European, one North American) happening in the same year. We have created a task force to work on this and have distributed a survey to the membership. We have now closed the survey and are pouring over the results. Please note that we are locked into contracts with hotels through 2023, therefore, you will not see any noticeable changes straight away.
Last year, we lost Sandy Schwarz. This year, we lost Murray Krahn. Both were past Presidents and long-time members who served the Society with consistency and vision. At the request of several members, an initiative spearheaded by Marilyn Schapira, the Board has decided to create a new SMDM Young Scholars Travel Award to be funded by donations made in memory or in honour of a Society member who has made significant contributions to our field.
Finally, I would like to congratulate the new Officers and Trustees for their election on the Board:
They will officially assume their role at the Business meeting in Seattle on October 25th. Beate Sander will preside over the 2022-2023 SMDM Board and she will receive the gavel from me (an age-old SMDM tradition!) at the Business meeting, which will be live-streamed.
I look forward to seeing you in Seattle!
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The opinions stated in the following commentaries are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions of the Society for Medical Decision Making or the author's institution. |
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By Aisha Langford, PhD; United States
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When Shared Decision Making May Not be the Answer
Over the past two decades, there has been increasing attention paid to the concept of shared decision making (SDM) in health care. While no universally accepted definition of SDM exists, SDM is the notion that patients and health care professionals work collaboratively to make medical decisions.
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Aisha Langford, PhD
Deputy Editor
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Such medical decisions may include screening options, treatment options, and end of life issues. An SDM process typically includes reviewing the pros and cons of each option (based on the best available scientific evidence) and discussion about which option best aligns with the patient’s values, preferences, and goals for treatment.
1. When should SDM be more patient driven, and when should it be more provider driven?
2. Should health care providers match decision-making style and strategy to patient needs, preferences, and traits?
In the paper, SDM is discussed in relation to Self-Determination Theory and the Difficulty x Motivation Matrix. Core tenets of Self-Determination Theory include competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Key ideas in the Difficulty x Motivation Matrix are that one’s perceived difficulty for making a behavior change (e.g., how much energy is required) and one’s motivation to change (e.g., controlled vs. autonomous) are what drive behavior change. Examples of behavior changes may include smoking cessation, vaccine uptake, weight loss, and substance misuse. In these scenarios, persuasion and motivational interviewing techniques designed to change behavior may be appropriate. At the same time, SDM techniques designed to support informed decisions, may also be appropriate. Notably, SDM techniques may or may not lead to behavior change as the emphasis is on the process for making a decision rather than the decision itself.
Some would suggest that SDM is less about who makes the final decision, but rather how a decision is reached and the degree to which the patient’s values, preferences, and goals for care are integrated into the plan. For example, if a patient is overwhelmed with a life-threatening diagnosis and communicates that they have no energy to weigh the pros and cons of their “reasonable” options, that patient may defer decision making to their provider. In this scenario, it would be appropriate to honor the patient’s wishes and not insist on a SDM process because the patient has autonomously deferred decision making to their provider. It should be noted that SDM is still possible at future encounters.
As the number of medical decisions that need to made seems to be increasing and patients have a growing burden of finding reliable health information outside of the doctor’s office, we may need to rethink how better implement SDM. For example, there is ongoing debate about when health professionals should use an SDM process (e.g., cancer screening) vs. more persuasive techniques (e.g., vaccine uptake). This debate is particularly relevant to SDM, which at times can require two consultations: one consultation in which the patient is informed and one consultation in which the decision is made. SDM that requires multiple consultations is challenging to accommodate into routine clinical workflow. What do you think is needed to help patients who want to be engaged in medical decision making and their clinicians fully benefit from SDM?
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Results MDM Poll Issue 1, 2022 -
by Ellen Engelhardt, PhD; The Netherlands
MDM poll: Preferences for methods and skill building courses
In the Issue 1 MDM poll we asked you to share your preferences for methods and skill building courses SMDM could offer (more of) to help members grow as decision scientists. A big thank you to the 68 respondents who filled in the survey. Most respondents were from North America (79%) and worked in the SMDM subfields of Decision Psychology and Shared Decision Making (29%), Applied Health Economics (25%), Health Services, Outcomes, and Policy Research (31%). Respondents were mainly PhD students or early career researchers (45%) and mid-career researchers (27%).
When asked what types of methods courses they would like SMDM to offer more of in the future, respondents were interested in courses on quantitative methods (e.g., decision-analytic methods (59%), stated preference methods (51%), and epidemiologic methods (43%), but also qualitative methods (34%) and methods for patient and shared decision making research (31%). Respondents were also interested in courses to build other skills such as learning to develop pictographs and other risk communication tools (31%) and creating graphical abstracts (19%) but would also value mentoring opportunities (21%).
About a third of respondents prefer to learn new skills on demand where they can watch at their convenience (asynchronous; 32%) and a quarter also like in-person courses at the annual SMDM meeting (26%) or live virtual trainings (synchronous; 25%). For 45% the preferred length for most trainings would be between 1 and 2 hours and 35% preferred courses with a duration between 3-4 hours.
The education committee is working hard to offer great courses. Keep an eye out for mailings about courses and the SMDM website.
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MDM Educational Resource Availability Survey |
On behalf of the SMDM Education Committee, you are invited to participate in our effort to generate a comprehensive list of available educational activities in Medical Decision Making. SMDM is striving to promote access to powerful education, therefore this list will be shared with our members and used to identify potential educational gaps in this field.
Thank you for being part of the effort to shape the future of Medical Decision Making.
Petros Pechlivanoglou SMDM Education Committee Chair
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Medical Decision Making (MDM)
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MDM - a journal of the Society of Medical Decision Making |
Published eight times a year, MDM presents theoretical, statistical, and modeling techniques and methods from a variety of disciplines including decision psychology, health economics, clinical epidemiology, and evidence synthesis. MDM promotes understanding of human decision-making processes so that individuals can make more informed and satisfying choices regarding their health. MDM’s audience includes researchers, clinicians, and policy-makers interested in methodologic contributions to, and applications of, medical decision making. A paper does not have to be “methodologic” to be considered for publication. |
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About MDM Policy & Practice |
MDM Policy & Practice (MDM P&P) is an open access journal that focuses on research that addresses current problems in health care policy and practice. The journal offers rigorous and systematic applications of decision science that are designed to improve the health and clinical care of individuals and to assist with health-policy development. MDM P&P focuses on the application of current theories, methods, and approaches from a variety of disciplines to important problems facing clinical and health policy decision makers, including patients, providers, producers, and payers.
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SMDM 44th Annual Meeting
Hybrid Meeting
October 23 - 26, 2022
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Don't forget that this is a hybrid meeting and that you can join virtual and in-person. Registration is still open and session recordings and all of the posters and oral presentations will be accessible on the meeting portal through November 25, 2022 to view at your leisure!
Meeting Co-Chairs: Sarah Munro, PhD and Davene Wright, PhD
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Mark Your Calendar for The 18th Biennial European Conference! |
2023 European Meeting Co-Chairs:
Beate Jahn, PhD; Austria
Tobias Kurth, MD, MSc, ScD; Germany
Silke Siebert, MD; Austria
Uwe Siebert, MD, MPH, MSc, ScD; Austria
It is our great pleasure to invite you to the 18th Biennial European Conference of SMDM, which will be held in Berlin, Germany on 21-23 May, 2023.
With the theme “Linking Research to Evidence-Based Action for Patients, Providers and Policy Decision Makers,” SMDM 2023 European Conference will offer the latest updates in medical decision making and cover novel research of various methodologies tailored to the entire interprofessional SMDM community.
Berlin is among the largest and most diverse regions for science in Europe, making it the perfect destination for SMDM 2023 European Conference. Participants will have many social opportunities to connect and network with peers from around the globe, while exploring the historical German capital and the many cultural and touristic activities it has to offer.
Save the date and join us in Berlin for another unforgettable SMDM conference we have planned for the medical decision making community!
With warm regards,
SMDM European Conference Organizing Secretariat
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45th Annual North American Meeting |
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Theme: To be announced soon
October 22 - October 25, 2023
Philadelphia, PA
Meeting Co-Chairs: Robert Beck, MD, and Joanna Hart, MD
Philadelphia 201 Hotel
201 N. 17th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
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Call for Volunteers
The SMDM always encourages members to become active in one of its committees and/or Interest Groups. Whether you are an experienced leader or just entering the field, there is a place for you to contribute to our global society. We are looking for individuals who are interested in assisting the Board of Trustees with setting the direction of the SMDM’s programs and services. All members are encouraged to engage. By becoming a volunteer leader, you can have a direct impact on the Association’s work and advance your career.
Getting involved is easy! Just complete the volunteer survey at the link below, select which volunteer opportunities interest you, and a short statement of interest. The deadline to submit your information is Friday, 11 November 2022.
We hope you will consider joining colleagues from around the world in contributing to the society and the field. Read more about the SMDM Committees and Interest Groups on the website
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We would also want to thank our SMDM Volunteers for all you do. |
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Interesting new publications by SMDM members |
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Using cancer risk algorithms to improve risk estimates and referral decisions
Kostopoulou O, Arora K, Pálfi B.
Cancer risk algorithms were introduced to clinical practice in the last decade, but they remain underused. We investigated whether General Practitioners (GPs) change their referral decisions in response to an unnamed algorithm, if decisions improve, and if changing decisions depends on having information about the algorithm and on whether GPs overestimated or underestimated risk.
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Algorithm-based advice taking and clinical judgement: impact of advice distance and algorithm information
Pálfi B, Arora K, Kostopoulou O.
Evidence-based algorithms can improve both lay and professional judgements and decisions, yet they remain underutilised. Research on advice taking established that humans tend to discount advice—especially when it contradicts their own judgement (“egocentric advice discounting”)—but this can be mitigated by knowledge about the advisor’s past performance read more
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Here are the most recent job opportunities since our last newsletter. SMDM members can stay current on the newest opportunities in the Resources Section of SMDM Connect.
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The SMDM Lifetime Contributors list acknowledges the SMDM members who have made contributions to the Annual Fund and acknowledges donations and in-kind donations, received from October 2005 - September 30, 2022. Our heartfelt appreciation goes out to everyone who has supported our Society!
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Editor-in-Chief
Netherlands Cancer Institute
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Deputy Editor
New York University Grossman School of Medicine
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