*Confirmation Bias & Attribution Error
There is something far more dangerous in the medical profession than doctors who cannot/will not admit their mistakes. It is an all pervasive lethal mentality for which there is no excuse. Worse than doctors whose errors cause harm are the countless others who turn a blind eye when patients who are the victims of “medical error” seek appropriate treatment. I am not talking about cosmetic concerns here, but real physical injury resulting in serious medical conditions caused by anatomical changes that any doctor worth his MD should be able to identify as ABNORMAL. Many diagnoses are not rocket science and require only the doctor’s knowledge of anatomy, physiology and good old common sense; the basic skills of problem solving. One does not need to be a plastic surgeon to recognize abnormal changes from poorly executed cosmetic procedures. More unbelievable are plastic surgeons who claim they do not see any “tangible abnormality” when it is blatantly obvious in photos, videos, x-rays and the patient herself. There is no excuse for the selective blind spot which seems to inflict doctors who are asked to logically sort out problems such as mine. When doctors excuse iatrogenic injury with a dismissive “I have never seen this before”, they should be reminded that unfamiliarity is reason enough for more investigation, not time to throw in the towel, especially when doing nothing subjects the patient to eminent doom.
For years I have suffered the dangerous repercussions of “confirmation bias” and “attribution error”, two terms used by Dr. Jerome Groopman to describe some of the most dangerous flaws pervading the medical profession today.. flaws that have nothing to do with a doctor’s skill, but with his ATTITUDE.. and faulty thought process. … things that should be the easiest cause of medical tragedy to eliminate from an already tainted profession. Yet these two factors, which are responsible for misdiagnosis that KILLS 15% of every patient suffering from an identifiable medical condition are within the control of each and every doctor. Confirmation bias is when doctors become anchored to one position regarding a patients problem and remain fixed in that opinion, even when additional diagnostics and other information later contradicts the initial impression. Conformation bias ignores or excludes such information as “unimportant”. To make matters worse, the next doctor takes his cue from the previous faulty information and continues with the process.
Attribution error is when the doctor attributes the patent’s every symptom to some aspect of his or her character or personality that the doctor doesn’t like. Of course, anyone injured by another doctor AUTOMATICALLY falls into this category. The walls of defense are ALWAYS apparent whenever a patient is suffering from any iatrogenic condition. This is a knee jerk reaction.. and a very dangerous one, as well as being an act of blatant cruelty.
Patients who know they have been victimized by these two inexcusable, lethal practices often fear bringing the guilty parties to light, when repeated respectful attempts to enlighten a doctor of his possible error fails. The more serious the patients medical problems, the longer the list, as the patient/victim goes from doctor to doctor believing sooner or later one of them HAS to have enough human compassion to remove the blinders and do their job.. That job is to identify the physical malady and treat it if possible. Patients victimized year after year by a long list of doctors become DEHUMANIZED by this process, if they are lucky.. and DIE when they are not. The psychological damage inflicted by health care providers cuts deep to the core of one’s being.. When medicine so loves to create new “disorders” for every imaginable condition of life, one has to wonder why they have not slapped a label on the devastating effects caused by the abuse of its own flawed mentality? The psychological and emotional turmoil caused by doctors’ errors in thinking is one of the most devastating kinds of abuse possible. Let’s start calling this what it is.. doctors victimizing patients through confirmation bias and attribution error is a form of abuse worthy of criminalization.
The time has come for me to expose the entire process of victimization that will be responsible for my death. This cannot be placed at the foot of a single doctor.. It involves a list that will make you choke, and a story line rife with negligence and deceit. My journey through the medical jungle exemplifies nearly every way in which doctors’ wrong thinking feeds upon itself to create the monster that has already written into its own script the way it will eliminate itself from the cause of my death. I intend to expose the monster first.. and will begin with Cape Cod Hospital. Why with CCH? Because that is where I would be taken, against my will, if I end up unconscious while trying to accomplish the simple tasks to sustain my survival.. where I would most assuredly end up being physically harmed by their ministrations, whatever they may be…because they have allowed layer upon layer of ERRONEOUS information to remain uncorrected in my medical records.
I will repeat here what I have written to each and every doctor having anything to do with my health care: If I had to wear a back brace, cervical collar or in any way imaginable were forced to remain in a position with my spine straight and head in a neutral position, I WOULD DIE OF ASPHYXIA. If I do not have control over my body posture at all times, and the ability to alter my posture and use compensatory means to maintain an open airway, I WOULD DIE IN A MATTER OF MINUTES. I repeat this because I know it to be FACT.. a fact that has gone unrecognized, in spite of my being forced to use the most drastic measures to continue breathing and functioning. for well over a year.. measures these doctors have witnessed and even remarked upon in their notes, as having to press a wooden spoon to my throat to breathe is insignificant. I sleep with a piece of wood wedged under my mandible and pressed against my trachea every night. I wake constantly, gasping for air, while I fumble to reposition this “device”, again and again.. all night long. This wooden back scratcher is wedged and pressed up hard against my throat when I walk into the doctor’s office, when I go to the grocery store, when I drive my car, when I sit at my computer typing. This requires wedging the long handle of the back scratcher between heavy books resting on my lap. The back scratcher is secured around my chest with a scarf, and thus stable enough for me to support the weight of my head with the curved end of the scratcher pressed under the mandible. It takes half the day to rig up something that will free up both my hands for an hour.. if I don’t move to dislodge it. I have been forced to mutilate my own flesh with every conceivable external means to continue breathing.
I repeat again, if forced to remain in a normal position anyone with normal anatomy would find comfortable, even for a matter of minutes , I WOULD DIE OF ASPHYXIA. I make this statement publicly without concern for whomever thinks it an exaggeration or evidence of my being “psychotic and delusional”.. terms which ER Dr. Carl Sigsbee at Cape Cod Hospital used in reference to my breathing and swallowing disorders.
Stumble It!
