New Tools for Reducing Medical Error

Early assessments of medical errors frequently focused on deficiencies in procedures and systems, yet research shows that 75% of those errors are individual and cognitive. And although typical medical training calls for the learning, storing, and recalling of large amounts of information, few medical professionals receive instruction on how to recognize, anticipate, and avoid innate mechanisms that can easily lead to cognitive error.

I’m happy to report that American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. has released my new book on this topic Thinking Again: Reducing Cognitive Errors in Psychiatric Practice. To accompany the release, they have also published my Special Report “Addressing Cognitive Error in Psychiatric Practice” in the January 2026 issue of Psychiatric News. A podcast on the same topic featuring an interview by Dr. Sulman Mirza will be available this week.

This content offers all medical practitioners, but particularly psychiatrists, insight into the common human errors we all make, particularly those which negatively impact treatment outcomes for our patients. There is a valid body of knowledge that practitioners can utilize to identify and correct these mistakes, but it requires individual will and initiative to employ.  

I am hopeful that we can elevate the practice of psychiatry by learning, implementing, and sharing these underutilized methods, resulting in fewer treatment failures and suboptimal outcomes. We must struggle against complacency and overconfidence.  Without conspicuous oversight, our brains proceed to support our safety and socialization, as they were selected to do. To make effective rational decisions, though, we must struggle to use only higher-level reasoning, which becomes more difficult the longer we practice.   

I hope that clinicians will review this article, listen to the podcast, and even read the book, so that as a profession we can better fulfill our responsibility to provide only our best efforts to our patients.