AHRQ Patient Safety Network: Blink or think: can further reflection improve initial diagnostic impressions?

AHRQ Patient Safety Network





Blink or think: can further reflection improve initial diagnostic impressions?

Hess BJ, Lipner RS, Thompson V, Holmboe ES, Graber ML. Acad Med. 2014 Nov 4; [Epub ahead of print].

This direct observation study examined cognition among experienced clinicians in the setting of their recertification examination and found that when they changed answers, it was usually from an incorrect to a correct response. This suggests that further reflection enhances accuracy compared to intuitive response, consistent with work on metacognition to enhance diagnostic accuracy.

PubMed citation 
Available at 

Related Resources

STUDY

Physicians' diagnostic accuracy, confidence, and resource requests: a vignette study.

Meyer AND, Payne VL, Meeks DW, Rao R, Singh H. JAMA Intern Med. 2013;173:1952-1958.

COMMENTARY

Use of a novel, modified fishbone diagram to analyze diagnostic errors.

Reilly JB, Myers JS, Salvador D, Trowbridge RL. Diagnosis. 2014;1:167-171.

COMMENTARY

Skin-deep diagnosis: affective bias and zebra retreat complicating the diagnosis of systemic sclerosis.

Miller CS. Am J Med Sci. 2013;345:53-56.

NEWSPAPER/MAGAZINE ARTICLE

Are you a great diagnostician?

Yasgur BS. Medscape Business of Medicine. March 27, 2013.

View all related resources...