There was recently a Twitter trend of people trying to describe programming in five words. The responses ranged from funny to puzzling to inspiring.
At our celebration of the end of the academic year, students, post-docs and faculty of the CHOICE Institute decided held a similar contest at our weekly seminar, and instructed attendees to “describe health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) in five words.” Here are a few of my favorite entries:
- “How to hurt less, cheap.” (Samantha Clark)
- “Math predicting value of medicine.” (Blythe Adamson)
- “Examining well-being trade-offs and technology.” (Doug Barthold)
- “Yo, treat sick people cost-effectively.” (Shuxian Chen)
- “To each his own evaluation.” (Nobody claimed this one, unfortunately!)
- “What is beyond opportunity cost?” (Enrique Saldarriaga)
As researchers in HEOR, the challenge of trying to explain what we do to outsiders is familiar to us all. That’s why it was really fun to try to encapsulate our field into just a few words.
Incremental Thoughts 