The plague of misinformation, disinformation and uncertainty swirling through our pandemic world has one distinct upside for our human brains.: the chance to better understand and cope with the cognitive biases that influence our thinking.

This is not just for the other guy. Every one of us is in the grip of ways of thinking that use shortcuts to reach understanding and decisions which can lead us mightily astray. These shortcuts hum along automatically, so we're not always aware of what's going on inside our heads. Diving into some hard thinking about thinking can help clarify our minds and protect us from bad ideas and sketchy decisions. So let's look at cognitive biases in health care and what they say about human IN THIS ISSUE Cognitive biases vex us all. But to cope with a pandemic, we need clear thinking.

Two thought systems, many headaches

We can get big benefits from battling mental illusions and built-in biases A dive into shark tales reveals much about our shaky assessment of risk Where's the Good Data? BY THE NUMBERS 28% Percentage of medical diagnostic errors attributed to cognitive biases. Diagnostic errors are associated with 6%-17% of all adverse hospital incidents. thinking.

Put on your thinking cap, and here we go …