Three Reasons Surgeons Make Poor Decisions (Orthopedics This Week)
James G. Wright, M.D., M.P.H., surgeon-in-chief at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, is responsible for six surgical divisions. He has had ample opportunity to study and closely observe how surgeons come to a decision. His conclusion? There is a lot happening at the subconscious level. Dr. Wright, an orthopedic surgeon, tells OTW, “Most of us assume that because we are doing evidence-based medicine that the evidence will actually be used. This is not necessarily so, however, because the surgeon’s decision making process intervenes.”
“There appear to be three issues which come to bear when surgeons are trying to make a decision.
1) The first is that surgeons come to relatively firm decisions and aren’t good at integrating new information. We are rather entrenched in our ways of thinking and despite new information/variations on what we know, we have trouble changing mindsets. Let’s say someone comes up with a great answer to an issue—something that should solve a controversy. The researcher publishes his or her work and promotes it through talks. We still see a slow uptake in the actual use of that informati...
