Looking forward
While heuristics and the type 1 processes are more efficient methods for making diagnoses, they can be subject to a variety of biases that may in turn lead to cognitive errors and adverse patient outcomes. Recognizing these potential pitfalls can help physicians surmount them and avoid diagnostic errors.
More research will hopefully lead to corrective solutions. But it is also likely that solutions will require additional time and resources on the part of already overburdened providers. Thus, new challenges will arise in applying remedies to the current model of health care management and reimbursement.
Despite clinically useful advances in technology and science, family physicians are left with the unsettling conclusion that the most common source of error may also be the most difficult to change: physicians themselves. Fortunately, history has shown that the field of medicine can overcome even the most ingrained and harmful tendencies of the human mind, including prejudice and superstition.16,17 This next challenge will be no exception.
CORRESPONDENCE
Thomas Yuen, MD, Crozer Keystone Family Medicine Residency, 1260 East Woodland Avenue, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19064; thomas.yuen@crozer.org.