CRC Press Diagnosis: Interpreting the Shadows

Despite diagnosis being the key feature of a physician's clinical performance, this is the first book that deals specifically with the topic. In recent years, however, considerable interest has been shown in this area and significant developments have occurred in two main areas: a) an awareness and increasing understanding of the critical role of clinical decision making in the process of diagnosis, and of the multiple factors that impact it, and b) a similar appreciation of the role of the healthcare system in supporting clinicians in their efforts to make accurate diagnoses. Although medicine has seen major gains in knowledge and technology over the last few decades, there is a consensus that the diagnostic failure rate remains in the order of 10-15%. This book provides an overview of the major issues in this area, in particular focusing on where the diagnostic process fails, and where improvements might be made. Review "This is the best writing yet by Croskerry, who has teamed up with other experts to write about the different elements that are key to the diagnostic process. This book is easy to read, and at the same time scholarly and well referenced. It offers much food for thought and really is 'must-read' for anyone interested in clinical reasoning, diagnostic decision making and how to teach medical students and doctors the HOW of thinking rather than just the WHAT."―Nicola Cooper, Doctors.org, United Kingdom About the Author Pat Croskerry is Professor of Emergency Medicine and in Medical Education at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He has been a contributor to the annual conference of the Society for Improvement in Diagnosis since its inception. He has published over 80 journal articles and 30 book chapters in the area of patient safety, clinical decision making and medical education reform. In 2006 he was appointed to the Board of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute, and in the same year received the Ruedy award from the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada for innovation in medical education. He is senior editor of Patient Safety in Emergency Medicine (2009). He was appointed Director of the new Critical Thinking Program at Dalhousie Medical School, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 2012. In 2014, he was appointed to the US Institute of Medicine Committee on Diagnostic Error in Medicine. Karen Cosby is a senior Emergency Medicine Physician at Cook County Hospital and Associate Professor at Rush Medical School. Her career interests include medical education, clinical decision-making, and patient safety. She has chaired the Fellowship subcommittee of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) and the patient safety interest group for the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) where she led efforts to produce a curriculum for patient safety. She was a co-investigator of an AHRQ grant on diagnosis error. She has edited three textbooks (including Patient Safety in Emergency Medicine). Her contributions to patient safety include a framework for classifying factors that contribute to error in emergency medicine, and a 15-year review of patient care management problems identified in M&M reviews. Her main career focus is investigating and understanding medical failure and improving education to meet the needs of an increasingly complex healthcare system. Mark L Graber is Professor Emeritus, Stony Brook University, a Senior Fellow at RTI University, and founder and president of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine. With Ilene Corina of Long Island, Dr Graber was the architect of "Patient Safety Awareness Week", now recognized internationally during the second week of March. He has authored over 100 peer review publications, and many foundational papers on diagnostic error. Dr Graber originated the Diagnostic Error in Medicine conference series in 2008, the journal DIAGNOSIS in 2014, and was a member of the