Eight clinicians in a renal dialysis unit were asked to classify the suitability of 100 cases (some real, some simulated) for regular haemodialysis. Seven categories were used, ranging from "excellent prospect: accept without reservation" to "unequivocal rejection," based on 18 items of information previously agreed on as sufficient for the purpose. The ways in which they classified the cases differed considerably; only six cases were placed in the same category by all eight clinicians, and this was the "unequivocal rejection" category. Analysis of the extent to which they made effective use of the items showed that between three and nine items were used to a sufficient extent to reach significance for the 100 cases.

Six clinicians were asked to choose one of the three available treatments (antithyroid drugs, surgery and radioiodine) and to rate the appropriateness of each treatment, for 40 patients already diagnosed as thyrotoxic, on the basis of five items of information about each patient. An examination of the extent to which they used this information showed that all effectively used less than five items and that three of them used fewer items in the choice than in the scaling task. Comparison of an individual’s performance on the two tasks gave some insight into his approach to choosing a treatment. It is suggested that choice of treatment should in future be explicitly approached through rating the appropriateness of each treatment.

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