Analysts, Economists, Advisors and Doctors Can Disagree About the Conclusion

(MoneyWatch)  Last week, I spoke to four orthopedic surgeons about my separated shoulder.
I told each of them the same facts: I was in a bicycling accident, fell on my shoulder and it hurt -- a lot. Armed (no pun intended) with x-rays, I assumed that physicians would all come to the same conclusion. I was wrong.

When I finally talked to my friend Dr. Doug, I was exasperated. "Why can't you guys agree about what I should do?" He chuckled and responded, "For the same reason that all of you money people can look at economic and market data and tell me different things to do with my money!"

Now I get it. This medical stuff is more like financial prognosticating than I knew -- it really is half science and half art. The good news about that ratio is that if you get the science part down, you only have half a chance to screw up the rest.

We want certainty, we want clarity and we want to know what to do. But the world is often gray and that's totally annoying. Too bad -- the faster we adapt to that reality, the more content we'll be, whether about our financial decisions or our medical ones.

I have one last appointment with a shoulder specialist today. He's going to break the tie, but in the end, the decision whether to cut or not to cut will be mine.


Just like managing your money, I guess. You can gather all of the information in the world, but in the end, you need to decide the best course for you. Thankfully that decision rarely involves a knife!

Image by Flickr user Sarah G..., cc 2.0