A variety of studies have shown physician judgment to have these same distortions. One, for example, from the Medical College of Virginia, found that doctors ordering blood cultures for patients with fever overestimated the probability of infection by four- to tenfold. Moreover, the highest overestimates came from the doctors who had recently seen other patients with a blood infection. Another, from the University of Wisconsin, found evidence of a Lake Wobegon effect (“Lake Wobegon: where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average”): the vast
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