When it comes to medicine, everyone wants their doctor to be confident in their abilities. Meeting with a physician should make patients feel assured that they are in good hands. While routine conditions are one thing, many physicians encounter a range of challenging situations that require their top mental performance. The answers aren’t always cut and dry, leaving a significant amount of diagnostic work. As humans, we often interact with challenges based on what we know and doctors certainly know a lot! Still, addressing overconfidence in medicine is something that many physicians must consider in the face of new patient experiences. Let’s unpack that a bit:
Addressing Overconfidence in Medicine
After years of medical schooling, you’ll be damned if the knowledge to diagnose and treat patients isn’t readily available. Honestly, our brains evolved to be lazy. We store information without really thinking, like when riding a bike, typing on a keyboard, or making that evening commute. But that doesn’t always mean that the first treatment that pops into your head when diagnosing a patient is necessarily the right or best solution. Actually, addressing overconfidence in medicine is a widespread issue for many different professionals. So what are the mental processes we can observe to get a handle on this?
Kinds of Cognitive Bias?
A previously conducted literature review found that over a third to two-thirds of diagnostic inaccuracies occurred as a result of physicians’ cognitive biases. In Academic Medicine, Pat Croskerry additionally noted that internal medicine, family practice, and emergency medicine are all specialties more prone to delaying, missing, or making erroneous diagnostic decisions due to bias. Specifically, overconfidence emerges as a very common form of cognitive bias implicated in diagnostic errors. Of course physicians aren’t the only professionals prone to this, however it can be particularly problematic when it comes to healthcare.
Addressing overconfidence in medicine is really about approaching this subject as objectively as possible. Danial Kahneman, an expert in cognitive heuristics describes this overconfidence bias as the tendency towards being “too certain.” When physicians are too confident in their diagnoses, there is the greater potential that they’ll avoid additional tests, forms of treatment, or just more probing questions. This could miss some key details which might make a diagnosis different altogether.
A second form of bias is the confirmation bias, or the tendency to search selectively for evidence that confirms our beliefs. It is a common human inclination to only accept things into our perception or worldview that affirm the beliefs we already hold, rejecting any contradictory statements or information.
So how exactly are physicians addressing overconfidence in medicine?
1. Recognize These Tendencies
In being able to acknowledge the idea of overconfidence, the ability to move past it emerges. As you’re well aware, being the person with the answers and solutions is usually the role you’re in. Nonetheless, when uncertainty arises it’s more productive than not to acknowledge the unknown. Many physicians can’t admit that they don’t know something for fear of being ridiculed or their team losing confidence in them. In reality, most people respect others who can freely admit they don’t have the best answer because it shows the need for research. That’s usually the point where new discoveries or breakthroughs occur! Still, it’s important to balance not knowing with finding the best answers possible.
2. Stay Open to Learning
When you are addressing overconfidence in medicine, it all comes back down to the willingness to learn. Sure, you want to be secure in the skills and knowledge you have, but seeking to learn more is never a bad thing! If you keep your mind flexible and open to the notion that you may not have every little detail worked out, you’ll have a better process for recognizing when new information or ways of thinking present themselves.
How are you addressing overconfidence in medicine? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
