First of all, I would like to thank Helen for sharing her story on film with us. After watching the film, I couldn’t help but think of ways to prevent such errors from happening again. When can we begin to address this issue that has been plaguing our nation? It made me reflect on the vast variation in training among nursing and physician education programs. Certain medical schools focus on the didactics for the first two years, while other medical schools begin incorporating clinical experiences very early on. In my opinion, learning medicine is like learning a language. Learning a language from a book is a lot a less effective than immersing yourself in the language while living in the country that speaks the language. You can spend ten years learning a language from a book and not learn as much as you would if you lived in the country for a year. The same goes for learning medicine, where learning theory is less effective than learning actively in a clinic. Theory and practice are starkly different, and I believe medical programs should move to introduce clinical experiences early on in a student’s education. Immersing a student in a clinical setting allows the student to truly understand how our healthcare system works, which can reduce communication and medical errors during residency and beyond.
