Modelling medical decision-making under uncertainty

This study investigates the heuristic knowledge which underlies expertise in a medical decision-making task. Data are obtained from a process tracing study of a consultant physician. A production system is developed to simulate his decision-making, tested on new cases, and compared with the performance of a second consultant physician and a representative sample of medical students. The results indicate that the production system performs at an effective level, and that representing expertise in such terms would make this difficult task more tractable for learners.