Nederlands tijdschrift voor geneeskunde, Volume 169, 13 2 2025, Pages D8782 [Cognitive bias in surgery: correctable failure or inevitably human?] Hamming JF, Adriaanse MA
A review in the Annals of Surgery addressed the role of cognitive bias and heuristics in creating surgical complications and death. Bias and heuristics in decision making is not new, but the fact that surgeons and clinicians in general are influenced by them is apparently still noteworthy. The idea that clinicians act purely rational or should persists. But doctors are not computers. Nevertheless interventions aiming at improving behaviour of clinicians is based on the assumption that more knowledge or guidelines will lead to better behaviour. But these elements are seldomly sufficiently adequate or key for better conduct. Medical decision making will never be fully objective. Interventions to improve decision making should be realistic and respond to how clinicians work and make decisions. Biases are there and always will be, sometimes innocent, sometimes harmful, but unrealistic expectations on human decision making will not help. As soon as we are able to realize this, there will be room for improvement.
