Importance of thoughts—how bias derails smart choices

The clinicians have two important tasks at hand.Arriving at a diagnosis is the most challenging and stimulating task to provide pain relief to suffering patients.When a symptomatic patient interacts with a clinician, a working hypothesis of a differential diagnosis is arrived at to investigate the patient for a definitive diagnosis. 1The other task of the clinician is to answer a query once it remains unsolved by conducting a series of research studies to generate evidence.The researcher conceptualizes and designs a study, collects, analyses, and interprets data and compares it with available evidence.This systematic approach, if unbiased, may provide a new solution to the clinical puzzle of arriving at a credible diagnosis and effective treatment.Bias is described as an error which may occur in clinical settings to arrive at a diagnosis and treat a patient.The bias may occur in the conception or design of a study or in the collection, analysis, interpretation, and reporting of research outcomes, which leads to conclusions that are systematically different from truth.The bias could be cognitive bias or publication bias.