Medical Testing
Jerry Johnson
Universtity of Nevada, Reno
This module explores issues in medical testing. No test is likely to be 100
percent perfect. The best that we can hope for is that it will give a correct answer with a
very high probability. As we will see, the probabilities and percentages can lead to some
surprising conclusions.
The concepts in this module are fairly subtle and may require some effort for many
students to grasp. However, it may help to dispel misconceptions that people have about
medical testing, and simply realizing the existence of these issues can be of value to a
consumer.
The math includes percentages and probabilities.