"And checklists lack flexibility. They might be useful for simple procedures like central line insertion, but they are hardly a panacea for the myriad ills of m

"And checklists lack flexibility. They might be useful for simple procedures like central line insertion, but they are hardly a panacea for the myriad ills of modern medicine. Patients are too varied, their physiologies too diverse and our knowledge still too limited." The problem is that everyone (including doctors) overestimates both their ability to diagnose based on instinct, and the percentage of patients who deviate from the norm. For heart attacks, they found that a 3 step checklist was X% effective in diagnosing a heart attack, while the doctor alone was Y%, and X was much higher than Y. Yes, sometimes the doctor would use his expertise to catch something the checklist would miss, but over time the math was with the checklist.