Patient Safety in the Undergraduate Curriculum

Furnace, near Inveraray

First photos from the rural GP placement here, one from Furnace with a view of Loch Fyne on the background, and another of Inveraray castle. Don't think it has rained a single day since I got here 3 weeks ago, maybe a first for the west coast of Scotland.

Inveraray Castle, home of the Duke of Argyll

I read the following editorial in the BMJ this week with interest: Paterson-Brown S. Improving patient safety through education. BMJ 2011;342:d214. According to the author "a window of opportunity exists to include training in human factors in undergraduate and postgraduate training". I thought that what we'd done over the past four months was pretty relevant, so submitted this to the BMJ as a 'rapid response'...

" Teaching undergraduate students about human factors and how to investigate adverse events should become part of the curriculum. In some places, teaching on this subject is already attracting the attention it deserves. Here, a small group of medical students undertook a selected study module in patient safety in their final undergraduate year. Clinical supervisors identified areas where patient safety was at risk, including shift handover, venous thromboembolism prophylaxis and oxygen prescribing. Using guidance from the Institute for Health Improvent, the students spent four weeks carrying out improvement projects using ‘plan, do, study, act’ (PDSA) cycles. The “bundles of care” or changes otherwise introduced resulted in improvements in patient outcomes by the end of the project period. The efforts resulted in benefit for the students who learnt about patient safety, and the patients who received better care. One way of teaching this subject is by investigating either incidents where errors have occurred or areas where improvement is required. Patient safety is not currently as high up the educational agenda as it should be. An opportunity exists now to introduce this into the undergraduate curriculum for the benefit of the next generation of doctors and patients."

I'm lucky to have had teaching on this already as an undergraduate but I don't think everyone is being given the opportunity at the moment. It seems to me that this is pretty important for all future doctors to know so I think the emphasis should be placed on teaching students, rather than postgraduates, in order to make improvements from the bottom upwards.