Archive of entries posted on February 2017

Who do you know who might suffer from the Dunning–Kruger effect?

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The  Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is. The phenomenon was first observed in a series of experiments by David Dunning and Justin Kruger of the department of psychology at Cornell University in 1999.  They attributed this …

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“Managerialism” in health: the second of two posts on healthcare

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On this blog we have discussed the power of the college and university administrators and the corresponding loss of power of the academics and university workers. In healthcare there has been a similar revolution, introduced under the guise of unquestioned ‘best practice’.  It is  seldom discussed or debated. The advent of neoliberalism (or Thatcherism) in …

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Just basic good manners: No. 1 of 2 posts on healthcare

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A letter arrived from a doctor telling me it was time to make an appointment for a check-up.  The problem was that the last time I saw the doctor he told me “come back in five years time” . That was exactly a year before. But when I called I was told to hang on….and …

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