Lapses, letters: mistake

In Medicine we use letters to classify  a disease, scores of severity, subclassification inside a disease, etc. The objective is to give a clearer idea about different situations and they work very well. But in a moment of distraction or multitask activity things can go to the wrong side.

Recently I have had an example. I ordered a serologic test for a patient to test for hepatitis. I saw “positive antibodies against core –anti c”. I thought that the patient was infected with hepatitis-C, and at least during a day I was confused. A new examination of the result allowed the correction of the mistake.

Lapses: An occurrence in which you fail to think or act in the usual or properly way for a brief time and make a mistake.

Actions slips: doing something different from what you intend .They are a failure of the central executive , the areas of the brain that maintain and allocate attention, plan cognitive tasks, and initiate the decision process.