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Leadership, decision-making and errors: cultural factors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Dinesh Bhugra
Affiliation:
Mental Health and Cultural Diversity, Health Service and Population Research Department, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, UK, email dinesh.bhugra@kcl.ac.uk
Susham Gupta
Affiliation:
East London Foundation NHS Trust, Assertive Outreach Team — City and Hackney, London, UK
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Abstract

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As clinicians, we are used to making often fast and life-altering decisions. As professionals, the clinical decisions we make depend upon our training, knowledge base, supervision, expertise and experience. Sociodemographic factors such as age, gender, ethnicity and cultural background can also influence our views. However, rarely do we step back to think about the mental processes behind our decision-making. In cognitive–behavioural therapy and in our general dealings with patients, we aim to help them identify their cognitive schema and attribution errors as a way forward; but we rarely reflect on our own cognitive schema and possible misattribution in making decisions. Both patients and healthcare professionals are affected by cultural norms, mores and expectations.

Type
Guest Editorial
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits noncommercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2010

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