JAMA went into their archives to publish this 100-year-old article – Why Physicians Err in Diagnosis (subscription necessary)

Abrahams classifies errors on the part of physicians into two groups, social and clinical.

Social errors, under which are listed (1) bad deportment and (2) lack of tact, affect chiefly patients suffering from such functional disorders as hysteria, psychasthenia and neurasthenia. Social errors prevent the physician from gaining the necessary confidence of such patients and inhibit the establishment of the thorough sympathetic understanding which should exist between the functional neurotic and his physician.

Clinical errors are due to (1) ignorance, (2) faulty judgment, (3) obsession, (4) failure to think anatomically, (5) failure to think at all, (6) reluctance to accept responsibility, (7) inherent difficulties in the case and (8) incomplete examination. Naturally these divisions may overlap in their application to any special case.

Methinks this old news has not yet expired in importance.