Suggestions For Patients
Groopman closes with an epilogue giving advice for patients. He gives the following tools that patients can use to help reduce or rectify cognitive errors:
- Ask What else could it be?, combating satisfaction of search bias and leading the doctor to consider a broader range of possibilities.
- Ask Is there anything that doesn't fit?, combatting confirmation bias and again leading the doctor to think broadly.
- Ask Is it possible I have more than one problem?, because multiple simultaneous disorders do exist and frequently cause confusing symptoms.
- Tell what you are most worried about, opening discussion and leading either to reassurance (if the worry is unlikely) or careful analysis (if the worry is plausible).
- Retell the story from the beginning. Details that were omitted in the initial telling may be recalled, or different wording or the different context may make clues more salient. (This is most appropriate when the condition has not responded to treatment or there is other reason to believe that a misdiagnosis is possible.)
Read more about this topic: How Doctors Think
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