Overconfidence as a Cause of Diagnostic Error in Medicine

Cricothyrotomy training increases adherence to the ASA difficult airway algorithm in a simulated crisis: a randomized controlled trial

“…Overconfidence is a source of medical errors that can adversely affect patient outcomes. 27 Although hands-on training in cricothyrotomy has been shown to maintain skill competence, [17][18][19] our findings suggest that it may also be detrimental to patient care by causing a delay in calling for help. It is therefore important to emphasize to junior anesthesia trainees during airway management training that calling for help early is appropriate.…”

“…The Non-Trained group had quicker mean (SD) times to call for help than the Trained group after oxygen desaturation to 92% (26 [27] vs 63 [48] sec, respectively; MD -37, 95% CI -74 to -0.4; P = 0.012) ( Table 3). The Non-Trained group also took significantly longer mean (SD) times than the Trained group to request that a cricothyroidotomy kit be opened after failed LMA ventilation (130 [50] vs 74 [36] sec, respectively; MD 56, 95% CI 14 to 98; P = 0.014).…”

Staying Out of Trouble

“…The error rate among radiologists has been estimated to be lower that than that among clinicians, 3-5 vs. 15 % [13]. That difference is attributed to the greater complexity of data accumulation and synthesis involved in clinical medicine.…”

Judging Whether a Patient is Actually Improving: More Pitfalls from the Science of Human Perception

“…In both cases, the gaps in hand-offs and discontinuities of care can promote an unduly optimistic or pessimistic impression of a patient's outcome. 32 Experiments in Gestalt psychology provide remarkable examples of such unconscious automatic imputation. A classic demonstration involves optical illusions presented for about 2 minutes to university students on stimulus cards, such as a Kanizsa image (Fig.…”