Availability Bias Archives | Marjorie Stiegler, M.D.

Kahneman and Thaler – Should I Go in the Water?

I first dipped my toes in the waters (no pun intended) of behavioral psychology and the adaptation of those principles to medical decision making in 2008, with my first national presentation on the subject of “cognitive error” – the mistakes and misjudgments made by...

Three Reasons We Are Still Making So Many Decision Errors

It is estimated that the volume of knowledge is doubling at least every 8 years. This rate of expansion overwhelms our capacity to stay abreast of emerging knowledge, even in the ever-narrowing micro-specialization of medical practice. New careers are created...

Memory, Cognition, and the Acquisition of Medical Expertise

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How to Never Be Wrong

My last post discussed how the building blocks of expertise and experience – stored memory collections of events and ideas – are the repository from which we make diagnostic and therapeutic decisions. Now, let’s consider three key strategies that may...

Don’t Believe Everything You Think: Why We Can’t Trust Our Own Experiences

Are our memories true histories, or just stories? Experience is critical to acquisition of expertise, and yet memories of our experiences are often incomplete and sometimes incorrect. Let’s consider experience, and how the same processes that lead to expertise may...

Anticipated Regret and Medical Decisions

[vc_column_text pb_margin_bottom=”no” pb_border_bottom=”no” width=”1/1″ el_position=”first last”] Is this quote true? Versions of this sentiment abound, and seem like motivation for living life to the fullest. But what...