Innate biases and failure to consider what it is like to be the person in front of you can result in incorrect diagnosis
- AK Benjamin is the pseudonym of a clinical neuropsychologist
As a clinical neuropsychologist I make mistakes, and I am not alone. Researchers interested in clinical decision-making estimate that across all medical fields diagnosis is wrong 10–15% of the time.
In many instances clinical errors are underpinned by one of a number of cognitive biases. For example, the “availability bias” favours more recent, readily available answers, irrespective of their accuracy; the “confirmation bias” fits information to a preconceived diagnosis rather than the converse. In the time-restricted milieu of emergency medicine, where I work on occasion, particular biases compound: “the commission bias”, a proclivity for action over inaction, increases the likelihood of “search satisfying” – ceasing to look for further information when the first plausible solution is found, which itself might be propelled by “diagnostic momentum” where clinicians blindly continue existing courses of action instigated by (more “powerful”) others.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3BIkS67
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