The Perfect Doctor TN-CTSI 2019-05-28 – handout
Time: May 28th 12:00-1:00PM
Location: Simulation Building Room 102
Presented by Fridtjof Thomas, PhD
The Perfect Doctor: An introduction to Causal Inference
Consider a Perfect Doctor that has the magical ability to pick from two treatments always the one that is better for each given patient. Can we learn about treatment effects by observing the outcomes for the individual patients treated by that doctor? What exactly can we learn and what will remain hidden? We will look in detail into this situation and thereby clarify concepts such as individual, average, and causal treatment effects; factual and potential outcomes; random assignment of treatments; and expected vs. observed outcomes in clinical studies. This seminar provides a non-technical introduction to causal inference in the medical sciences.
TN-CTSI seminar series on statistical reasoning in biomedical research: The Division of Biostatistics in the Department of Preventive Medicine and the Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design Unit of TN-CTSI invite you to attend a seminar series on statistical reasoning in biomedical research. This 6-seminar series emphasizes conceptual aspects over technical details.
Final Seminar in the Series:
June 4th Enhancing Statistical Methods in Grants and Papers (Saunak Sen, PhD)
Keywords: Individual, average, and causal treatment effects; factual and potential outcomes; random assignment of treatments; expected vs. observed outcomes.
