Effect of Availability Bias and Reflective Reasoning on Diagnostic Accuracy Among Internal Medicine Residents.

The article provides information on a study which determined whether recent experience with clinical problems triggers availability bias leading to diagnostic errors and whether reflection counteracts such bias. Participants in the experimental study carried out in 2009 were 18 first-year and 18 second-year internal medical residents enrolled at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The phases of the clinical diagnosis that the participants were asked to perform are detailed. A discussion on the research findings is presented.