Learning about the barriers to patient safety over the past year made overcoming them seems like such a daunting, impossible task. The magnitude of the task hasn’t changed, but after listening to everyone’s admirable accomplishments at the introductions this morning, I am much more confident we, as the future generation of providers, can collectively tackle the problem of patient safety. I am excited and honored to share this educational experience with such an accomplished group of people. Today has been a very educational session and I anticipate the rest of the camp to be nothing short of that.
I really enjoyed the small group break out session where we had to discuss the barriers and benefits of admitting errors to patients. I was intrigued by the stories my teammates brought from the clinic into the discussion. Some of them reinforced the tribal nature of our industry. Others supports the benefit of being open and honest with patients when harm occurs. Not having extensive clinical experience, these stories helped me grasp how the patient safety hurdles I have learned about manifest themselves.
The tools we learned during the session yesterday seem to be very useful. I can foresee myself using these tools as a practicing physician. But, how can I use these tools now to improve patient safety? I am a student in the classroom, not in the clinic. Can I work with a clinical team? Will they listen to me? With so much inertia and my lack of authority, what tools can I use to make a difference now? That’s what I am hoping to learn throughout this week.