Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Charlie's main message

Charlie Kenney was next at the conference. After telling stories of notable leadership in the quality and safety arena, he concluded by relating a story about Sorrel King asking Hopkins medical students how many had heard about To Err is Human. Among all the first and fourth year medical students present, not one had heard about the study. His conclusion: “There is an ignorance in the medical profession about the quality and safety movement that has to be fixed. We have to do a better job getting the word out there.”

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

He is absolutely dead on. I bet you that there is no course entitled "Quality of care and patient safety" in any medical school curriculum today. I am going out on a limb, but I'd like to see someone prove me wrong. Doctors just don't see the value of it yet. I was one of them, until I was "eddicated" by an anesthesiologist/Chair of our Performance Improvement Council, who had seen the light. Anesthesia, by the way, is the specialty most systematically advanced in this field. But it needs to begin much earlier than by the time one reaches specialty training.

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