As I reflect on the emotions from this week in Colorado: excitement, sadness, fear, anger, shame, grief, hope, I think about the next steps to improve the lives of our patients. Patients deserve our best, at every encounter, in partnership, for their health. I feel weighed down by institutional cultures that promote blame and shame of human providers that make errors. These errors, when shoved into secrecy, erode at our moral cores and dehumanize the patient-provider encounter. However, I see hope in joining the almost 1400 Telluride Experience alumni who have committed ourselves to making zero preventable harms a reality. With many hands, we can lighten the load on individual providers and lift each other up to provide the individualized, honest, and mindful care that our patients deserve.
