Diagnosis (Berlin, Germany)
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Background Cognitive biases may negatively impact clinical decision-making. The dynamic nature of a simulation environment can facilitate heuristic decision-making which can serve as a teaching opportunity. Methods Momentum bias, confirmation bias, playing-the-odds bias, and order-effect bias were integrated into four simulation scenarios. ⋯ Establishing new bias-resistant frames occurred more often when the learners experienced the bias. Conclusions Instructional design using experiential learning can focus learner attention on the specific elements of diagnostic decision-making. Using scenario design and debriefing enabled trainees to experience and analyze their own cognitive biases.
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Background Improving Diagnosis in Healthcare calls for improved training in diagnostic reasoning and establishing non-judgmental forums to learn from diagnostic errors arising from heuristic-driven reasoning. Little is known about pediatric providers' familiarity with heuristics or the culture surrounding forums where diagnostic errors are discussed. This study aimed to describe pediatric providers' familiarity with common heuristics and perceptions surrounding public discussions of diagnostic errors. ⋯ The most frequently cited barriers to discussing errors were loss of reputation (62.9%) and fear of knowledge-base (58.6%) or decision-making (57.1%) being judged. Conclusions Pediatric providers demonstrated limited familiarity with common heuristics leading to diagnostic error. Greater years in practice is associated with more comfort discussing diagnostic errors, but negative peer and personal perceptions of diagnostic performance are common barriers to discussing errors publicly.
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Background Errors in medicine are common and often tied to diagnosis. Educating physicians about the science of cognitive decision-making, especially during medical school and residency when trainees are still forming clinical habits, may enhance awareness of individual cognitive biases and has the potential to reduce diagnostic errors and improve patient safety. Methods The authors aimed to develop, implement and evaluate a clinical reasoning curriculum for Internal Medicine residents. ⋯ Self-assessed comfort in recognizing and applying clinical reasoning skills increased in 15 of 15 domains (p < 0.05 for each). Resident mean scores on the knowledge assessment improved from 58% pre-urriculum to 81% post curriculum (p = 0.002). Conclusions A case vignette-based clinical reasoning curriculum can effectively increase residents' knowledge of clinical reasoning concepts and improve residents' self-assessed comfort in recognizing and applying clinical reasoning skills.
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Background A framework of clinical reasoning tasks used by physicians during clinical encounters was previously developed proposing that clinical reasoning is a complex process composed of 26 possible tasks. The aim of this paper was to analyze the verbalized clinical reasoning processes of medical students utilizing commonly encountered internal medicine cases. Methods In this mixed-methods study, participants viewed three video recorded clinical encounters. ⋯ Reasoning tasks related to framing the encounter and diagnosis were not used in succession but interchangeably. This suggests that teaching successful clinical reasoning may involve encouraging or demonstrating multiple pathways through a problem. Further research exploring the association between use of clinical reasoning tasks and clinical reasoning accuracy could enhance the medical community's understanding of variance in clinical reasoning.
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Background Excellence in clinical reasoning is one of the most important outcomes of medical education programs, but assessing learners' reasoning to inform corrective feedback is challenging and unstandardized. Methods The Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine formed a multi-specialty team of medical educators to develop the Assessment of Reasoning Tool (ART). This paper describes the tool development process. ⋯ Results The ART is a behaviorally anchored, three-point scale assessing five domains of reasoning: (1) hypothesis-directed data gathering, (2) articulation of a problem representation, (3) formulation of a prioritized differential diagnosis, (4) diagnostic testing aligned with HVC principles and (5) metacognition. Instructional videos were created for faculty development for each domain, guided by principles of multimedia learning. Conclusions The ART is a theory-informed assessment tool that allows teachers to assess clinical reasoning and structure feedback conversations.