Alan Schwartz's Home Page

This is a picture of M.G. and me.

I'm an Assistant Professor of Clinical Decision Making in the Department of Medical Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I'm also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychology. My curriculum vitae is here.

Interests

Judgment and Decision-Making

My past work has focused on general human judgment and decision making. My current projects focus on medical and clinical JDM, and consider how both physicians and patients make decisions about health -- and how those decisions can be improved. In particular, current projects include:

Affective aspects of decision making. How do we feel about the outcomes of decisions, and do we anticipate these feelings and use them in making choices?
Acceptable regret. If physicians consider regret in their treatment decisions, they ought to violate the probability-threshold model in systematic ways. In particular, there should be situations in which the physician will experience higher-than-desired expected regret whether or not a treatment is undertaken. (With Benjamin Djulbegovic).
Clinical values. What is the ideal physician, and how does the ideal differ for different patients? Are patients whose physicians share their ideals more satisfied with their physician and do they have better health outcomes? (With Arnold Eiser and Arthur Elstein).
Graphical Representations of Decision Analyses. How well do physicians understand decision trees and influence diagrams? What concepts are most easily understood with each representation?
Web-based Evidenced-Based Medicine curriculum for Pediatrics residents. Can evidence-based medicine be taught effectively at a distance using the World-Wide Web and other internet resources? (With Jordan Hupert and Arthur Elstein).
Patient preferences for diagnostic tests for irritable bowel syndrome. How do patients assess attributes of diagnostic tests (colonoscopy, barium enema, and white cell scans) for irritable bowel syndrome. Which tests do patients prefer? (With Richard Nelson)
Rating Scales for Quality of Life. Can rating scales provide measures of quality of life that are valid both psychometrically and in a utility theory framework?
Perceptions of and Attitudes toward Risk in Treatments. What aspects of treatment options cause people to consider them more or less risky? How much risk are people willing to accept?
Information sharing in clinical group decisions. What information do group members share when making a group decision and how does shared information affect the influence of a group member? (With Jim Larsen and Arthur Elstein).

I teach MHPE 494: Medical Decision Making and co-teach MHPE 504: Organization and Management of Health Profession Education Programs.

Micro-Organizational Behavior

I'm interested in how organizational context (formal structure, informal norms, task design) affect decision-making and motivation in organizations. I have both descriptive and normative interests: I'd like to know how things work so I can make 'em better.

Cognitive Linguistics

My undergraduate program was a double major in Cognitive Science and Women's Studies, and my work in Cognitive Science with George Lakoff focused primarily on Cognitive Linguistics. My work has included conceptual metaphor, contested concepts, and the application of cognitive linguistics to social science issues. My cognitive science thesis discussed the latter two topics, and used feminism as a case study of a contested concept.

Computer-mediated communication and information

I'm fascinated by the ways in which computer and network technology impact human communication and cognition. I've been involved in the world of multi-user internet virtual worlds, MUDs. I'm currently the maintainer/developer of a flavor of MUD server called PennMUSH, and author of Javelin's Guide for PennMUSH Gods. I have run MUSHes based on based on Frank Herbert's book Dune (DuneMUSH) and Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld (Riverworld MUSH). I have also run a play-by-email storytelling game set in Riverworld. These "games" provide me a unique opportunity to study management and organization in a virtual environment, as well as being a lot of fun.

I have also written a book called Managing Mailing Lists, that will be published by O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. in March 1998. I'm working on another for O'Reilly on fighting spam.

Homebrewing

My wife and I have been brewing beers and meads since January 1995. We call ourselves Se Noyer Brewing.

Feel free to write! My email address is alansz@uic.edu.

You can read some quotes I like.

You can get my PGP public key.

Alan Schwartz <alansz@uic.edu>