by Nisha Patel
My time spent at the Marseille Patient Safety Summer Camp was enlightening and life-changing. It was life-changing for me and my future patients. In my application essay I spoke about how “I want to be part of the solution and enhance patient safety by figuring out how to prevent nosocomial infections, lower remittance rates, and develop better communication strategies between health professionals”. I learned this and much more.
The statistics presented to us were powerful. I cannot believe I was never informed about the infamous IOM report in my first year of medical school. The Hippocratic Oath says we must do no harm; it would be wise if we learned how to actively not do this in medical school. However, this patient safety conference has educated me and I plan to spread awareness to my class. Medical errors account for the third leading cause of death in the U.S.; 100,000… Continue reading
Reflections from Marseille East
First and foremost, I’d like to thank all the leadership, instructors, and patient families for having me and taking the time out of thier busy schedules to share with us their valuable information and experiences. I will echo what Rick said yesterday in that this conference definitely re-ignited that fire in me to change our culture in Medicine and put the focus back on patients and their safety and well-being. When I go back to my slightly younger self to think of how I expected to be as a physician, I never thought of the negative effects I could have on patients, I only thought of myself as a healer. Then I said to myself, “OK, I can change my ways and improve myself so that I am better aware of errors around me or because of me, and correct them before they do real harm to… Continue reading
Are we as unique as we think we are?
Since coming back to my apartment, I’ve begun to reflect on some of the experiences from this past week of Marseille. Specifically, I’ve thought about what it will take to affect change at my home institution of Georgetown Medical School.
My mind keeps wandering back to a conversation I had with Michelle on Thursday night. We were both rehashing our outcomes from the X Y business negotiation game. I thought that I had a very clever strategy for success. Even though it ultimately failed, I thought that it was sound in concept. My approach was to feign misunderstanding about the rules for the first few rounds and throw the X card 4 times. Then I would act as if I finally grasped the rules and encourage everyone that it is for everyone’s benefit to throw only the Y card. I assumed everyone would see the benefit to this and then… Continue reading
Including Patients in Safety Culture
This post will be relatively short. I spent time writing a rather lengthy post about the healthcare story of someone close to me with her blessing. However, when I read what I had written back to her, after telling me to make a couple changes, she decided that she did not want me to post the story anymore. I respected her wish, but asked her why she changed her mind. After all, I had not included names. She said that she felt bad that some of the healthcare providers in her story looked bad and could maybe somehow figure out the story was about them. I think there was something to be learned about the premature closure, lack of informed consent and shared-decision making, and lack of respect for the patient’s perspective on her illness that led to harsh complications, but I realize that we have already had this opportunity… Continue reading
The Art of Negotiating
Today I failed miserably in the art of negotiating. The Hamilton exercise validated how terrible I am and how much I lack the skills to be selfish and defend my qualities when it comes to negotiating a salary. I have had many opportunities in my short life to negotiate a salary and to be bluntly honest, I failed miserably at all of them. As Paul was explaining that most people avoid this type of exchange I started thinking about why do I have such a negative opinion of negotiations. I considered if it is because I enter this ritual with the predisposition that I have to do the numbers dance…. 35…30…34….32.5… , or that I expect some sleazy tactics to trick me, or is it that I view negotiating as a type of confrontation which I want to avoid at any cost. There was no process of elimination in my… Continue reading
Onward and Upward
I am so so grateful to have been given the opportunity to attend Patient Safety Camp. As the week progressed I started to wish that everyone could attend something like this; I will be highly recommending it when I get back to school. Since I know that everyone cannot attend Patient Safety Camp, I started thinking about how I could carry this information back to Indy and take with me wherever I go after that. My school has a Patient Safety elective (of which I am on the waitlist for), but beyond that we are given no formal training in the Patient Safety Culture. I’m going to sit down with my Integrative Medicine group e-board and see if we can get Patient Safety education to be one of our platforms. I’m likely jumping ahead of myself (as I often do) but we could do a series over the course of… Continue reading
Closing Thoughts from Lisa Freeman
By Lisa Freeman
The student session at Marseille East is wrapping up and I feel very hopeful. I came here as a patient advocate and as a family member of someone who was harmed during surgery and subsequently died. I have had the privilege to share my family’s story with many who are here and I have been told that you have taken something positive away from it. I have watched many of the participants have “Ah ha!” moments during the various exercises and games. Listening to the commitments that have been made, and the ideas for change that everyone is bringing back home with them, I feel hopeful that what Patty, David, Helen and I, as well as all the other victims of medical harm have experienced will occur less and less often!
One last thought that I want to share as you return back to… Continue reading
Chick Fil A and Healthcare Quality
By Christine Galligan
My friend is allergic to gluten and can only eat the grilled chicken nuggets. One time on the way home from our internship, we stopped at Chick-fil-A and she ordered grilled chicken nuggets. However, when we pulled out of the drive-thru, she realized that she had been given fried chicken nuggets. This was a near miss as she could have had an extremely allergic reaction. We pulled around and parked, and she ran inside to report the mistake. We could have driven away and she could have gone hungry, but we decided to let the management know. At the very least, the cashier or the person wearing a headset at the drive-thru should be made aware. Human error exists. It is not a crime and it is typically not intentional. Chick-Fil-A is quite efficient at standardization. However, no one is perfect. Work one day in the food… Continue reading
Day 1 reflection
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… Continue reading
Marseille East kicks off at Turf Valley #TPSER10
Our third 2014 session for the Marseille Patient Safety Summer Camps is kicking off this morning with student introductions and safety moments. We have another impressive group of future patient safety leaders gathering to increase the growing size of our own Dumbledore’s Army of sorts. Many have been chosen to participate because of academic success and leadership, and a passion for patient safety, but the extracurricular talents never cease to amaze and impress. We have with us:
- A concert pianist
- A philosopher athlete
- A landscape/home improvement aficianado
- Binge Netflix watchers
- Musicians
- A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation intern
- A Classical guitarist
- Scientists
- Public health researchers
- An ICU nurse/ED nursing manager
- Georgetown medical students
- Scuba/kayaking guides/fans
- Biomedical scientists
- An International basketball player
- An Irish dancer
- An MBA/MPH graduate
- A key/Lock collector
- A Neurobiology major
- A Human factors researcher
- Peace corps in Kenya
The group that has come to Turf Valley this week… Continue reading