2023 Annual Oration
The Science and Art of Making Medical Decisions
John B. Wong, MD
John B Wong, MD is Vice Chair of Academic Affairs, a primary care physician, and primary faculty in the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center and Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the Tufts University School of Medicine. A Master of the American College of Physicians, a past president of the Society for Medical Decision Making, an Associate Statistical Editor at the Annals of Internal Medicine, and a member of the US Preventive Services Task Force, he has been a consultant to the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), World Health Organization, National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, European League Against Rheumatism, Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement, American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association and others. With over 275 publications, his research focuses on the application of decision analysis to help patients, clinicians, and policymakers choose among alternative tests, treatments or policies, thereby promoting rational evidence-based efficient and effective patient-centered care that reflects individualized risk assessment and patient preferences. For the NASEM, he has co-authored chapters in the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence 3rd Ed (and will for the 4th Ed), a committee member for diagnostic errors in medicine (published as Improving Diagnosis in Health Care) and for Evaluating the Process to Develop the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020–2025, speaker for Sex-specific Reporting of Scientific Research and for Observational Studies in a Learning Health System, and reviewer for Hepatitis and Liver Cancer. He received his BS with honors from Haverford College and MD from the University of Chicago and completed residency, medical informatics fellowship in Clinical Decision Making, and chief residency in Internal Medicine at Tufts Medical Center.
