When doctors make decisions about a patient's health, they can sometimes be affected by common mental shortcuts, known as cognitive biases. Here are three important ones to know:

1. Confirmation Bias: This happens when doctors pay more attention to information that matches their first guess about what's wrong with a patient. For example, if a doctor thinks a patient has diabetes, they might ignore signs of another illness.

2. Anchoring Bias: This is when the first piece of information a doctor hears shapes all their future thoughts. For instance, if a doctor hears that a patient has chest pain, they might automatically think it’s a heart problem and forget to consider other issues, like stomach problems.

3. Availability Heuristic: This bias can occur when a doctor remembers recent cases too strongly. If a doctor recently treated a rare disease, they might think that it’s more common than it really is when seeing new patients.

It's important for doctors to be aware of these biases. This can help them make better decisions for their patients!