Bias in the ER - Issue 45: Power
▻http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/bias-in-the-er
The dazed young woman who arrived at Sunnybrook Hospital, Canada’s first and largest regional trauma center, from a head-on car crash presented the surgeons treating her with a disturbing problem. In addition to her many broken bones, the rhythm of her heartbeat had become wildly irregular. It was either skipping beats or adding extra beats; in any case, she had more than one thing seriously wrong with her. She remained alert enough to tell them that she had a past history of an overactive thyroid. An overactive thyroid can cause an irregular heartbeat. And so, when the hospital’s resident medical detective, Don Redelmeier, arrived, the staff believed that they no longer needed him to investigate the source of the irregular heartbeat but only to treat it. No one in the operating room (...)