The purpose of this conference proposal is to increase communication and dissemination of research between the basic sciences of judgment and decision making (JDM) and the applied science of medical decision making (MDM). Despite common roots, there are important differences between JDM and MDM as currently studied and practiced. While researchers in each field are often methodologists, the JDM community has focused the majority of its attention on the development and testing of theories of human decision making, and the MDM community has focused its work on the application of normative models of decision making to policy decisions and the development and refinement of prescriptive tools for decision making by patients and health professionals. Each field could be enriched by increased academic interchange.
The vehicle for this interchange is an innovative exchange of symposia between the 2008 annual meetings of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making (SJDM) and the Society for Medical Decision Making(SMDM) and subsequent dissemination of the symposium presentations. Top researchers in JDM will be selected through a peer-review process to present a symposium at SMDM entitled "Current Developments in Judgment and Decision Making"; top researchers in MDM will be selected through a peer-review process to present a symposium at SJDM entitled "Application and Innovation: Lessons from Medical Decision Making". The symposia will be aggressively disseminated through online video and audio, as well as through academic publication.
