Physicians in the U.S. may need more support when it comes to training for global epidemics or situations like the Ebola outbreak, a survey conducted by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital found.
When they surveyed 202 primary care physicians in late 2014 and early 2015, 95 percent of them expressed confidence in their ability to identify potential Ebola cases, but roughly 30 percent gave answers that did not fit with CDC guidelines when they asked how they would care for a hypothetical potential Ebola patient.
Many physicians would have taken a route that was overly intense if they encountered a potential Ebola case. That varied depending on the actual likelihood of a physician encountering an Ebola patient — 3 percent of physicians who were most likely to see Ebola patients selected excessive management, while 23 percent of physicians with virtually no possibility of seeing an Ebola patient did the same.
"Our findings demonstrate significant variation in how doctors make decisions in situations of uncertainty and show how decision-making can be shaped by geography, sources of information and other factors," said Ishani Ganguli, MD, from Massachusetts General Hospital. "They suggest that we need to do a better job helping doctors on the front lines of patient care deal with future global epidemics."