Biases arising from salient features of presentation which initiate the diagnostic process and frame the direction of subsequent information gathering
| Previous diagnosis label | Because somebody had wrote down that he had bell's palsy and he'd been seen in hospital …. I immediately thought that's what he had (1) |
| Story of the insect bite and that was what we were sort of using as our diagnostic tool really (6) | |
| Pre-existing psychosocial problems | All thought some of the bleeding might be from sexual abuse (31) |
| Sick notes, and prescriptions and whatever and I thought that that was probably the main reason behind the um sort of um consultations (37) | |
| Reassurance from initial appearance | When I called the patient back I got hold of the granny who said oh yes mum's in the shower that as a clue to me meant that maybe the child wasn't that ill (11) |
| She wasn't terribly unwell (33) | |
| Similarity to a recent case or similarity to representative case built from experience | My diagnosis was fed by a patient the previous week who'd presented with an ischemic foot (40) |
| And I thought he had cancer because of the mass and the weight loss and the paleness (44) | |
| Incorrect localisation of salient features | Vomiting and sweating and diarrhoea … epigastric pain (10) |
| Epigastric discomfort . …must be indigestion (20) | |
| Common things occurring commonly (probabilistic reasoning) | Viral infections are common (16) |
| My preconception at the time was that a young <30 year old is very, very unlikely to have bowel cancer (32) | |
| Ignoring as well as over or under estimating red flags or critical cues | He came in hopping, which is quite unusual. Not weight bearing at all is quite unusual (30) |
| Normal chest on examination (24) | |
| Vague presenting symptoms, no salient features recognised | Fatigue from whatever cause (3); it was all very vague (28) |
| Atypical leg pain couldn't work out what was going on (21) |