The single greatest impediment to error prevention in the medical industry is that we punish people for making mistakes. (Lucian Leape, MD, “Error in Medicine,” JAMA 1994)
The last two weeks have been a helpful crash course in patient safety. I’ve enjoyed nearly all of it, but I admit that I’m sensitive to what I perceive as busywork. I’m giving a presentation with a classmate tomorrow on one possible intervention for improving the current method for incorporating a patient’s outside imaging into his hospital record. What has been, I think, a productive thought exercise and possible tangible product, has also been tangled in a mesh of unnecessary, frustrating, fruitless efforts, which have taken up more than just my own time.
You could argue that the frustration, the perhaps unnecessary efforts are all part of it, helpful tools and experiences in their own right. But this afternoon I just couldn’t wait to come home to this:
It broke my heart this morning to have to rush her and Evie out the door this morning, while she tried to crawl into her backpack, desperate to go for a walk. God, Ari makes me laugh the way she insists “Hah! Hah!” (Hat), while tapping the top of her head. And our sweet, docile second child…not quite sure where she came from. She likes having her fontanelle stroked, her soft forehead caressed. One of her caretakers at daycare said that she will be our family’s peacekeeper, and that we’re gonna need it!
anna in med school 