Concepts
Health psychology/Cognitive biases · Clinical reasoning
Search satisficing
What it means
Calling off the search once the first (plausible) finding is made, missing a second, coexisting problem.
Worked example
Finding one fracture on a film and missing the second; one toxin and missing the co-ingestant.
In the exam
On a trauma film the clinician spots an obvious wrist fracture, stops looking, and misses the second fracture higher up the forearm.
What settles it
Search satisficing is stopping after ONE finding (missing co-pathology). This is the bias behind failing to integrate a SECOND finding — e.g. calling "Alzheimer’s" and ignoring the coexisting vascular changes that make it mixed dementia.
Classically confused with
Premature closure
Source: Croskerry