Quiz: Cognitive Errors in Clinical Decision Making
Question 1 of 2  

Although quantitative mathematical models can guide clinical decision making, clinicians often make clinical decisions based on pattern recognition and a subconscious integration of patient data with prior experience. Such informal reasoning is often vulnerable to several types of cognitive errors. Which of the following is an example of availability error (misestimating the prior probability of disease because of recent experience)?

  • A.

    Basing diagnoses on classic manifestations of a disease

  • B.

    Not accounting for population prevalence of a diagnosis

  • C.

    Not doing follow-up testing after assuming initial diagnosis is correct

  • D.

    Overtesting subsequent patients after missing a diagnosis in a previous patient

Am I correct?