| Availability Heuristic |
Judging by ease of recalling past cases |
• Clinical diagnosis of pneumonia at initial presentation with fever, tachycardia, dyspnea, tachypnea and abnormal CXR |
| Anchoring Heuristic |
Relying on initial impressions |
• Continuing to diagnose pneumonia at initial presentation despite failure to improve on antibiotics |
| Blind Obedience |
Showing undue deference to authority of technology |
• Overreliance on negative ANA and Anti-Jo1 autoantibodies and normal CK |
| Premature Closure |
Espousing narrow-minded belief in single idea |
• Exclusion of dermatomyositis on the differential diagnosis |
| Information Overload |
Too much data for an individual to organize, synthesize or use to draw conclusions from |
• Multiple hospitalizations and a plethora of diagnostic tests resulting in a long medical record that was cumbersome to review |
| Information Avoidance |
Ignoring relevant information and useful information sources |
• Failure to re-examine patient’s entire clinical presentation |
| Inattentional Blindness/Perceptual Blindness |
Failing to perceive an unexpected object/task/result due to focusing attention elsewhere |
• Overlooking initially elevated aldolase |
