Cognitive Biases and Heuristics in Surgical Settings
Biases and heuristics contribute to surgical errors and never events, and will continue to do so until they are recognised and addressed. Implementing debiasing strategies, such as mindfulness training and deliberate reflection, was found to reduce surgical errors in 2 studies. This review highlights the need for experimental studies, which are essential for understanding how and why biases lead to negative outcomes and for evaluating further debiasing interventions. We propose directions for future research and system changes.
Authors
- Holly Aylmore (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1800-8399)
- Hani Joseph Marcus (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8000-392X)
- Anand Pandit (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4936-4916)
- Srishti Agarwal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-9569-9524)
Institutions
- Wellcome / EPSRC Centre for Interventional and Surgical Sciences (GB)
- National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (GB)
- University College London (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Annals of Surgery
- Published
- 2025-04-21
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1097/sla.0000000000006736
- Citations
- 5
- Primary Topic
- Clinical Reasoning and Diagnostic Skills
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 7.58