Most doctors are too optimistic in predicting how long dying patients have to live, and this has a (47)______ effect on the care they receive in their final days.
A study by scientists at the University of Chicago Medical Center in Illinois showed that of the survival estimates for 486 terminally ill patients given by 343 doctors, only 20 percent were (48)______.
Sixty-three percent of the predictions (49)______ the time patients had left, and in some cases doctors predicted patients had five times longer to live than proved to be the case.
"Doctors are inaccurate in their prognoses (预测性诊断) for terminally ill patients and the error is systematically optimistic," Professor Nicholas Christakis and Dr Elizabeth Lamont said in a report in The British Medical Journal.
The researchers added that doctors who knew their patients best were more (50)______ to get it wrong.
" Although some error is (51)______, the type of systematic bias toward optimism that we have found in doctors’’ objective prognostic (52)______ may be adversely (有害的) affecting patient care, "the researchers added.
Instead of receiving three months of hospice care(晚期住院治疗), which is considered to be the i-deal, many patients (53)______ only one month’’s care because of the optimistic prognosis.
Patients who thought they had longer to live also opted for more (54)______ treatment instead of palliative (平缓的) care, the report said.
The researchers suggested doctors should get second opinions from colleagues, particularly if they know a (55)______ well, before giving a prognosis.
"Reliable prognostic information is a key (56) in both doctors and patients’’ decision making," they added.
WORD BANK
A) likely B) positive C) accurate
D) assignments E) unavoidable F) objective
G) patient H) assessments I) evaluated
J) received K) negative L) aggressive
M) determinant N) estimated O) overestimated