All Doctors are Jackasses
‘All Doctors Are Jackasses’ is the title of the talk I gave at SMACC last March as part of the ‘Mind of the Resuscitationist’ plenary with Scott Weingart, Cliff Reid and Simon Carley. Subscribe to the SMACC Podcast to hear the other talks as they are released.
This is the abstract for my talk:
It will come as no surprise that the title of this talk was not taken from ‘How to win friends and influence people’. The subject may make you feel uneasy, and so it should, but no resuscitationist can afford to ignore it. You might think that you are not a ‘Jackass’, but cognitive science tell us to expect that – the ‘blind spot bias’ is universal. I will convince you that you are indeed a ‘Jackass’ and I will show you why. Together we will delve into the workings of the human mind to understand how we think, and how our minds can (and frequently do) sabotage us in critical life-or-death situations. Finally, we will explore ways we can overcome our universal ‘Jackassness’ and become better doctors so that we can keep patients safe and help save lives.
The content of the talk comes from standing on the shoulders of two giants: Pat Croskerry and Daniel Kahneman — I list both among my heroes.
The audio files
The slides
By the way, the title of the talk was inspired by one of my teachers, forensic pathologist Tim Koelmeyer – he features in these LITFL posts:
References and Links
LITFL
- CCC – Affective Dispositions to Respond
- CCC – Cognitive Dispositions To Respond
- To Err is Human 001 — Entrapped
- To Err is Human 002 — Are You Satisficed?
Journal Articles and Textbooks
- Croskerry P. Diagnostic Failure: A Cognitive and Affective Approach. In: Henriksen K, Battles JB, Marks ES, Lewin DI, editors. Advances in Patient Safety: From Research to Implementation (Volume 2: Concepts and Methodology). Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2005 Feb. PMID: 21249816.
- Croskerry P. From mindless to mindful practice–cognitive bias and clinical decision making. N Engl J Med. 2013 Jun 27;368(26):2445-8. PMID: 23802513.
- Croskerry P. Context is everything or how could I have been that stupid? Healthc Q. 2009;12 Spec No Patient:e171-6. PMID: 19667765.
- Croskerry P, Cosby KS, Schenkel SM, Wears RL. Patient Safety in Emergency Medicine, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2009. [Google Books Preview]
- Kahneman D. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2011 [Google Books Preview]
FOAM and web resources
- Daniel Kahneman | Edge.org
- Free Emergency Talks – Talks by Patrick Croskerry
- NobelPrize.org – 2002 Economics Prize Lecture by Daniel Kahneman
- The Short Coat – Thinking about thinking
- The Short Coat – Anchors Aweigh! Cognitive Bias – Where IS This Ship Headed?
- The Short Coat – Metacognition For The Pragmatist
- SMACC ‘Mind of the Resucitationist’ Plenary 2013 — Weingart — The Mind of the Resuscitationist, Reid — How to Be a Hero and Carley — Wrestling with Risk
Chris is an Intensivist and ECMO specialist at the Alfred ICU in Melbourne. He is also the Innovation Lead for the Australian Centre for Health Innovation at Alfred Health and Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University. He is a co-founder of the Australia and New Zealand Clinician Educator Network (ANZCEN) and is the Lead for the ANZCEN Clinician Educator Incubator programme. He is on the Board of Directors for the Intensive Care Foundation and is a First Part Examiner for the College of Intensive Care Medicine. He is an internationally recognised Clinician Educator with a passion for helping clinicians learn and for improving the clinical performance of individuals and collectives.
After finishing his medical degree at the University of Auckland, he continued post-graduate training in New Zealand as well as Australia’s Northern Territory, Perth and Melbourne. He has completed fellowship training in both intensive care medicine and emergency medicine, as well as post-graduate training in biochemistry, clinical toxicology, clinical epidemiology, and health professional education.
He is actively involved in in using translational simulation to improve patient care and the design of processes and systems at Alfred Health. He coordinates the Alfred ICU’s education and simulation programmes and runs the unit’s education website, INTENSIVE. He created the ‘Critically Ill Airway’ course and teaches on numerous courses around the world. He is one of the founders of the FOAM movement (Free Open-Access Medical education) and is co-creator of litfl.com, the RAGE podcast, the Resuscitology course, and the SMACC conference.
His one great achievement is being the father of two amazing children.
On Twitter, he is @precordialthump.
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