Case Article—Vermillion OVA1 Test

Abstract

Tying classroom material to current business events helps motivate and engage students. It also exposes them to examples of how to apply what they learn in practice. We present an example of how, in a course on modeling with spreadsheets, we used or article in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) about approval of a medical test as the basis for an exercise on conditional probabilities, conflicting objectives, and the value of information. We present the plan of the discussion followed in class and the exercises assigned to students to help them understand the concepts. We use spreadsheet functions and tools new to many of our students, in particular, lookup functions and tools for sensitivity analysis. We also demonstrate how to create and interpret a tornado chart. We believe that examining the WSJ article in detail has value because it allows students to solidify their understanding of conditional probabilities and spreadsheet modeling and also gives them an appreciation of the complexities and the balancing of multiple perspectives in medical decision making. Case Teaching Note: Interested Instructors please see the Instructor Materials page for access to the restricted materials. To maintain the integrity and usefulness of cases published in ITE, unapproved distribution of the case teaching notes and other restricted materials to any other party is prohibited.