Why do doctors make mistakes? A study of the role of salient distracting clinical features.
Mamede S, Van Gog T, Van den Berge K, et al. Why do doctors make mistakes? A study of the role of salient distracting clinical features. Acad Med. 2014;89(1):114-20. doi:10.1097/ACM.0000000000000077.
Internal medicine residents made more diagnostic errors during complex clinical cases when a salient distracting feature—a case finding strongly associated with a particular disease that is actually unrelated to the problem—appeared near the beginning of the case description, but not when presented toward the end.