ABSTRACT
One very interesting issue in the study of human decision making pertains to the role of intuition, particularly in the case of expert decision making, and the impact that it can have on two of the key parameters of decision making: speed and accuracy. Given the complexity and variability of human decision making, answering such specific questions can only be done within a very specific scenario of decision making; in this paper, we focus on clinical decision making in the delivery room where expert neonatologists make key care decisions pertaining to the care they give to very premature babies. Following in the footsteps of Gary Klein and his proposals toward naturalist decision-making studies, we try to ascertain how these experts seek to maximise the accuracy of their diagnoses and the speed of their interventions to save the lives of the most vulnerable patients.
Based on video recordings taken in the delivery room, supported by the analysis of the recorded case notes, we selected five cases of adaptation to extra-uterine life where the decision making and interventions of neonatologists were decisive. We use these extreme cases of decision making to explore the role of expertise and intuition, in an environment that is rapidly moving toward the implementation of evidence-based decision making.
