LAUSR

Postgraduate medical education will need to adapt in light of the healthcare and educational reset that the COVID-19 response has necessitated. The ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic, and the proliferation of data from many sources, used by many actors with different frames, has meant that the importance of unbiased decision-making is now central in pulling together a unified response. As two aspiring academic clinicians in the UK with protected time to develop and explore ideas alongside our clinical training1, we became curious about clinical decision-making. We initially examined decision-making from the lens of our research experiences of evaluating the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms in healthcare.2 Our thesis was that their increasing use would profoundly affect how clinicians made decisions. As we began to unpack the existing literature of clinical decision-making, we focused on the current educational provision for clinicians in understanding what makes for good decisions—and the biases that may warp them. We were surprised to uncover such a paucity of assessment and formal training in these areas—for instance, the terms ‘clinical decision-making’ and ‘bias’ appear only twice each in the UK’s general internal medicine curriculum.3 As a result, we designed an educational intervention in the form of a series of Grand Rounds with a TED-style presentation.4 Our aim was to increase the awareness of biases that can affect decision-making among our peers, consultant colleagues and other allied health professionals. Using our experiences of delivering the presentation ‘Biases in clinical reasoning: I’ll think to that! ’, we reflect on the wider implications for clinicians, not only in terms of the need for future educational interventions but also in terms of the format that they will need …