Cardiac Arrest and Gastrointestinal Bleeding: A Case of Medical Heuristics

Insufficient clinical data from patients is a major cause of errors in medical diagnostics. In an attempt to make a diagnosis, initial clinical information provided to the physician may be overly relied on as the only information required in making diagnosis leading to anchoring. Failure to rely on differential diagnoses in spite of new signs and symptoms or rethinking of initial hypothesis may lead to fixation on a certain diagnosis, which may...