Here is a picture of our entering class of residents at their orientation session. What, you don't see anybody? Well, it is because these are the rows at the front of the auditorium. There seems to be some kind of Darwinian imperative -- perhaps based on their experience in undergraduate medical education -- for trainees to sit in the back rows. If you go back a few rows, you can find people, like these three new Emergency Department residents, seen with Dr. Sean Kelly, head of our graduate medical education program.Notwithstanding their seating proclivities, this is a great group of trainees, and we are happy to have them with us for the coming years. My major points of advice to them? Wear bicycle helmets. And, help us eliminate preventable harm in the hospital by being vigilant caller-outers.
Great shot of the emergency medicine residents!
ReplyDeletePaul, I like your advice to the residents, though if we really are serious about eliminating preventable harm and encouraging people to be vigilant caller-outers, we'll follow the model of Michigan and Illinois with respect to comprehensive early communication programs. This basically means communicating all adverse events in real time (with proper coaching) and working with families and patients in the aftermath of advserse events whether they are errors or not. We do some of this, but not enough. Real transparency means completely reinventing how we deal with medical malpractice - the primary roadblock to transparency if you ask any physician (or the IOM). I can send my detailed report on this to anyone interested, Paul I think has it already, maybe you can post it as a link on your blog?
Send link here, please, Peter.
ReplyDeleteSorry, originally thought the link was gone, but looks like it still works:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.senatormoore.com/news/archive/2008/03/031108-3.htm
Then click on the PDF at bottom of the page to access the report.