This is a fascinating series in Pediatric Emergency Care in which interesting cases from published medical malpractice verdicts are featured. Each case – typically ending poorly – is followed by a short editorial on the underlying disease processes, with pearls regarding treatment, diagnosis, and the case outcome. Reading these cases, hopefully, will not contribute to recency bias, and ideally serve simply as brief reminders of clinical features of the rare sick children lurking in the haystack of walking well.
Medicine – as much as or greater than any other profession – is a delicate mix of confidence, humility, and the recognition of the underlying biases in our cognition and practice. Most of this blog focuses on practicing based on evidence, applying the rules and probabilities of populations as guides towards the diagnosis and treatment of individual patients. Therefore, when reading these Legal Briefs, I simply want to reinforce the dangers of anecdote-based medicine.
“Pediatric Emergency Medicine: Legal Briefs”