title: Changing the culture in medical education to teach patient safety.
abstract: In 1999 a seminal Institute of Medicine report estimated that preventable medical errors accounted for 44,000-98,000 patient deaths annually in U.S. hospitals. In response to this problem, the nation's medical schools, teaching hospitals, and health systems recognized that achieving greater patient safety requires more than a brief course in an already crowded medical school curriculum. It requires a fundamental culture change across all phases of medical education. This includes graduate medical education, which is already teaching the next generation of physicians to approach patient safety in a new way. In this paper the authors explore five factors critical to transforming the culture for patient safety and reflect on one real-world example at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
authors.affiliation: Association of American Medical Colleges, Washington, DC, USA.
authors.forename: Darrell G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Kirch
authors.forename: Philip G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Boysen
mesh_terms: D004503:Education, Medical, Graduate; D006801:Humans; D009657:North Carolina; D015279:Organizational Culture; D061214:Patient Safety; D017751:Safety Management / Q000592:standards*; D012577:Schools, Medical / Q000458:organization & administration