Bird Pinkerton
speaker
1,078 appearances
11 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 4d ago
Bird Pinkerton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 11 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 3.
Appearances
And Alexandra says that in one of the reports she read, she warned against the idea that scans or tech would solve everything.
Instead, she says diagnostic error is this thorny, complex problem connected to a lot of different systemic issues.
So, for example, one thing she encountered over and over when she talked to patients who'd had a diagnostic issue was the problem of time.
In the NIH program, these doctors were able to give Louise time, not just in the sort of thorough initial meetings, but also in the follow-ups that occurred across the years.
And that care was also coordinated, which was another factor that Alexandra heard and read about as she was trying to suss out the reasons for diagnostic error.
That really stands in stark contrast with this undiagnosed diseases model where doctors get into a room and talk to each other about the patient before the tests are run and then talk about the test together again afterwards.
Now,
Alexandra did tell me that there are a lot of issues that contribute to diagnostic error, like how tired a doctor is when they see you can be a factor.
Or in like a bigger picture sense, it can be hard for some doctors to get feedback on whether their diagnosis was correct or not and to therefore learn from their mistakes.
So the undiagnosed diseases model is not going to solve like every problem here, but
But she still thinks it would be useful to borrow from it.
Alexandra has seen medical clinics and systems that are recognizing the value of getting more people that are involved in a patient's care, just kind of talking with each other.
And she's even seen people with models that look something like the Undiagnosed Diseases Network.
Even if every system does learn from the undiagnosed diseases model, though, and doctors have the time and the resources and the coordination to come to a diagnosis, that is just the beginning of the story.
Do they talk to you at all about
Just the idea of having a name, like something to sort of point to and say, yes, this is what I have.
Like, has that changed their lives at all?
I think on our show, we celebrate the unknown so much.
You know, we celebrate, like, uncertainty.
And I think this story has just really driven home for me how devastating an unknown can be and how, like—
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