The psychology of error in relation to medical practice

There is a broad effort underway to reduce the frequency of medical error. This effort will be facilitated by understanding the causes of human error and the methods that serve to reduce it in settings comparable to medical practice. To serve this end, this article is a review of cognitive psychology as it relates to the origins of human error and an application of that material to issues that arise in medical practice. (C) 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.