Downsides of specialization - You are less likely to die of heart surgery when cardiologists are away
Summary
- A recent study showed that cardiac patients are more likely to survive if they are in hospital when cardiologists are away in meetings.
Details
- A possible reason is that when a cardiologist has become so specialized, all problems look like the same and they may provide unnecessary heart surgery.
References
Range - Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World - David Epstein
Quotes
Highly specialized health care professionals have developed their own versions of the “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” problem. Interventional cardiologists have gotten so used to treating chest pain with stents—metal tubes that pry open blood vessels—that they do so reflexively even in cases where voluminous research has proven that they are inappropriate or dangerous. A recent study found that cardiac patients were actually less likely to die if they were admitted during a national cardiology meeting, when thousands of cardiologists were away; the researchers suggested it could be because common treatments of dubious effect were less likely to be performed.