Changing perceptions from the inside out

I want to address something that really irks me as both a medical professional and a patient with a rare disease.
So if you've read this, you know that I work at an ER. I've worked in the hospital, as a medical assistant and done some EMS work. We are trained to follow algorithms that indicate what is most likely to be wrong with our patient. The key words here are most likely. Yes, the old adage is usually correct. When you hear hoof-beats, think horses, not zebras. Most patients are horses, but that doesn't mean zebras don't exist. It takes a critical eye to catch the elusive zebra, but we are often so stuck on the flow chart that we miss these patients. They deserve to have someone think critically about their case.
In emergency medicine, the first glimpse of a patient we get is usually another persons notes. In EMS, we get our dispatchers notes, information they got from the caller. In the ER, we get triage notes, again another person's interpretation of the situation. It usually includes the persons age, sex and chief complaint. This initial assessment greatly influences the way we view the situation. A 19 year old female with chest pain is less of an emergency than a 67 year old male with chest pain. They may put the 19y/o down as a level 3 and the 67y/o as a level 1. 98% of the time, their assessment is dead on. The 67 year old is almost always more acute than a 19 year old.
Here is what I'm asking. Look closer. As much as I respect triage nurses and dispatchers, they can be wrong (so can I). Don't allow your mind to dismiss the 19 year old until you have looked at the vitals, the whole nurses note or laid eyes on the patient. Don't dismiss that patient and go to lunch because they will be fine until you get back (and I know about how hard it is to get a minute to eat, but you can ask the nurse how they are or poke your head in the room first).
Sometimes, the 67 year old, has a burning pain that began 10 days ago and is relieved by TUMS and the 19 year old has a connective tissue disorder and ripping pain with an acute onset an hour ago. We have all coded a young person and had no idea why they were in our ER. We need to learn to go into a patient encounter without presuppositions as to what is wrong with the patient, so we can catch the zebras. In the end, we are more than just a person following a flow chart.