special subjects
Cognitive Errors in Clinical Decision Making
Minimizing cognitive errors
Some specific strategies can help minimize cognitive errors. Typically, after history and physical examination are done, clinicians often form a working diagnosis based on heuristics. At this point, it is relatively easy to insert a formal pause for reflection, asking several questions: If it isnotthe working diagnosis, what else could it be? What are the most dangerous things it could be? Is there any evidence that is at odds with the working diagnosis? These questions can help expand the differential diagnosis to include things that may have been left out because of cognitive errors and thus trigger clinicians to obtain further necessary information. 