ABSTRACT
Doctors and patients already have set metacognitive patterns in terms of diagnosis and healthcare encounters. Both doctors and patients rely on both rapid and slow cognitive processing, before, during, and after doctor-patient interactions. For doctors, the right healthcare diagnosis and creating understanding in a patient is crucial to optimal healthcare. As the depth and breadth of knowledge expands exponentially, there are more ways than ever before to support healthcare diagnosis with criteria, testing, and various, sometimes individualized, treatment choices. An unfortunate consequence has been an erosion of clinical empathy. For a patient, healthcare interactions can be more or less confusing depending on the scope and seriousness of a given illness and the people that are able to help navigate any or all unfamiliarity. Metacognition, or thinking about patient-doctor thinking, helps explain what doctors and patients already do and also gives insights into what can be improved for doctor-patient connection and optimal healthcare.
