It's not just the data

Over the last day, two timely reminders that, though we love to look at data, there's always a person or a family it represents. The data can help us understand the context, and possibly the course of events, but you can never tell which individual is going to land in which spot on the curve. In other words, it's important to listen to the person in front of you. Yesterday, Julian Fisher, a guest blogger at The Atlantic, made the point with regard to medical care here. He was riffing on Abraham Verghese's New York Times Op-Ed, here.