title: What would I want for my surgery?
abstract: If you were to have an operation tomorrow, would you want your surgical team members to feel comfortable speaking up, to defy hierarchy, to interact with each other just as well as they perform technical aspects of the procedure? Would you want to feel like part of the team? Your answers to these admittedly leading questions are based on the culture of the surgical team and the interdependence of team members and are at the heart of a current debate around the surgical checklist's effectiveness. In British Columbia (BC), many individuals responded to the paper by Urbach et al. (2014) that described the minimal impact on patient mortality after implementation of the surgical safety checklist in Ontario. They wrote to the Surgical Quality Action Network (SQAN) to express their perspectives, and interestingly, some refuted and others supported the conclusions. Given the strong reaction this study created in the surgical community, a number of key stakeholders have prepared a response in order to provide another perspective to the article and emphasize the checklist's value for improving the culture of surgical teams.
authors.affiliation: Human Factors Specialist with Vancouver Coastal Health and the B.C. Patient Safety and Quality Council.
authors.forename: Allison M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Muniak
authors.affiliation: Chair of the B.C. Patient Safety and Quality Council.
authors.forename: D Douglas
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Cochrane
authors.affiliation: Provincial Implementation Lead: Innovation, Quality and Healthcare Improvement, Alberta Health Services.
authors.forename: Marlies
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van Dijk
authors.affiliation: Medical Director, Surgical Services, Interior Health Authority of B.C., and Co-Chair of the Provincial Surgical Executive Committee.
authors.forename: Andy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hamilton
authors.affiliation: Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics, University of British Columbia.
authors.forename: Stephan K W
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Schwarz
authors.affiliation: Vice-President of Medicine and Quality & Safety with Vancouver Coastal Health.
authors.forename: J Patrick
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: O'Connor
authors.affiliation: Chief, Department of Surgery and Medical Director for the Surgery Program at Lions Gate Hospital, Vancouver Coastal Health.
authors.forename: Ramesh L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Sahjpaul
mesh_terms: D057189:Checklist / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D010358:Patient Participation; D061214:Patient Safety; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative / Q000379:methods / Q000523:psychology