Contextual and biomedical medical errors

I was just looking at this article for another class, it is a bit late, but I thought it was very interesting in how it relates to doctor patient communication. The article discusses a pilot study done that examines the two types of mistakes doctors make, relating to biomedical or contextual information. The test included mock patient interviews where residents were told to devise a treatment plan based on the information that the patient had given them (the patients were trained actors). TheI was just looking at this article for another class, it is a bit late, but I thought it was very interesting in how it relates to doctor patient communication. The article discusses a pilot study done that examines the two types of mistakes doctors make, relating to biomedical or contextual information. The test included mock patient interviews where residents were told to devise a treatment plan based on the information that the patient had given them (the patients were trained actors). The results show that residents were more likely to miss biomedical information than contextual, however the majority of the residents that obtained the contextual information ignored it in the treatment plan. I think this is interesting because the case was designed in a way that the contextual information should have greatly altered the treatment plan. This goes back to what was discussed in class about a patient’s ability to understand and carry out the instructions of their treatment plan, some of the examples used were those of patients who were prescribed to medication and it was not working because they were not taking it or they were taking it incorrectly, in many cases the doctors did not consider that before increasing the dosage. results show that residents were more likely to miss biomedical information than contextual, however the majority of the residents that obtained the contextual information ignored it in the treatment plan. I think this is interesting because the case was designed in a way that the contextual information should have greatly altered the treatment plan. This goes back to what was discussed in class about a patient’s ability to understand and carry out the instructions of their treatment plan, some of the examples used were those of patients who were prescribed to medication and it was not working because they were not taking it or they were taking it incorrectly, in many cases the doctors did not consider that before increasing the dosage.