Your expert knowledge may put them off: Curse of knowledge among anesthesiologists

Abstract

SUMMARY

The curse of knowledge” is a human cognitive bias that may lead to ineffective communication and we should acknowledge that we are affected by it. The communication with patient should be simple and clear. Though anesthesia has become safer following better drugs and technology but still we may face patients with grave co-morbidities. Anesthesiologists may not get enough time to communicate with patients, preoperatively, but we should endeavor to collect as much information as possible from a patient using simple rather technical terms. Effective communication may avoid ’curse of knowledge’ and result in improved patient safety. Anesthesiologists should make an effort to spend considerable time in pre-anaesthesia check-up clinics or in ward to communicate with patient who is likely to undergo surgical procedure. Similarly, we should have a candid communication with trainees in anaesthesia so that the events are not taken for guaranteed. This would avoid the curse of knowledge and assure better patient care. The same approach of clear communication should be applied to our surgical colleagues.