Physician bias can play a role in misdiagnoses
Unconscious assumptions, also known as cognitive biases, can influence how a physician evaluates a patient. When someone in New York expresses a medical complaint, the physician might base decisions on that person’s race, gender, social class or sexual orientation. Factors like appearance, whether the person reminds the physician of someone else or the person’s manner of speech could all cause the physician to make a diagnosis based on assumptions instead of clinical facts.