Medical education
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Prior studies suggest that clinicians can categorise patients in an emergency room as 'sick' or 'not sick' using rapid visual assessment. The rapid nature of these decisions suggests clinicians are relying on pattern recognition or System 1 processing; however, this has not been studied experimentally. In this study, we explore the accuracy of these decisions using patient disposition (discharge, admission to ward or admission to critical care) as an objective outcome, and collect evidence to argue for the use of System 1 processing in the 'sick' or 'not sick' decision process. ⋯ Experienced emergency physicians are able to visually assess patients rapidly and predict disposition in a very short time, albeit with fair reliability and lower accuracy than reported previously. Subjectively, they reported that the majority of decisions were on the side of 'knew immediately', consistent with the application of System 1 processing.