Patients place a lot of trust in the healthcare professionals providing their care. Physicians typically command respect and trust. People assume that the doctors treating them have the knowledge and skill necessary to help them pursue the best possible prognosis.
For a small but concerning portion of patients, mistakes made by doctors result in them not getting the care they need in a timely manner. Diagnostic errors, including misdiagnosis and a failure to diagnose, can leave people vulnerable because they do not receive care as quickly as they require it.
There are many ways for healthcare professionals to make diagnostic errors. The decision to downplay or ignore a patient’s self-reported symptoms could result in a doctor struggling to diagnose the patient accurately. Why might a doctor not fully listen when a patient is explaining their experience?
Doctors suffer from confirmation bias
Any professional who has to regularly answer complex questions learns to look for evidence to support their hypothesis. In a health care setting, doctors may put more emphasis on tests and other sources of objective information than on what a patient reports. They may do this in part because they can quantify test results and verify them.
There is also the innate human inclination to prioritize information that supports one’s beliefs over information that may contradict those beliefs. Particularly in scenarios where the patient’s self-reported symptoms might lead to a completely different diagnosis, doctors may brush off unsubstantiated symptoms reported by the patient but not witnessed in a medical setting.
Personal bias can also play a role
A doctor overlooking a patient’s symptoms doesn’t just want to be right about their diagnosis. They may also subconsciously let prior interactions or personal beliefs influence their practice of medicine.
For example, perhaps a physician has seen a patient reporting the same symptoms before. The doctor may question the severity of self-reported pain symptoms because they associate those symptoms with medication-seeking behavior.
Other times, the innate characteristics of a patient can affect how a doctor perceives them. Doctors may have a different attitude toward female patients as opposed to male patients. Race and age can also factor into how much weight a doctor gives a patient’s narrative. Someone in their teens or twenties might seem less reliable than an adult near retirement age.
Even socioeconomic status and education can influence how a patient communicates with a doctor and therefore how much the doctor believes them. Unfortunately, doctors who ignore a patient’s analysis of their situation might reach the wrong diagnostic conclusion. The patients in their care might then see their symptoms worsen because they have not received an accurate diagnosis followed by appropriate treatment.
Recognizing that a doctor may have made a mistake due to internal bias can help people take action. Diagnostic errors may be grounds for a medical malpractice lawsuit.