The art of apology: when and how to seek forgiveness.

Commentary

The art of apology: when and how to seek forgiveness.

August 8, 2007

Roberts RG. Fam Pract Manag. 2007;14(7):44-49.

View more articles from the same authors.

This article offers practical advice on how to determine when an error has occurred and discusses the elements of an appropriate apology.

PubMed citation

Free full text

Related Resources From the Same Author(s)

Patient safety tools for primary care.

April 19, 2023

Using morbidity and mortality conferences to drive quality improvement and reduce errors.

May 17, 2023

Risk of misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis with COVID-19: a syndemic approach.

February 10, 2021

Risk mitigation in large scale systems: lessons from high reliability organizations.

March 6, 2005

Diagnostic challenges in primary care: identifying and avoiding cognitive bias.

June 29, 2022

The patient's "story": an examination of patient-reported safety incidents in general practice.

May 4, 2022

Clinician-identified problems and solutions for delayed diagnosis in primary care: a PRIORITIZE study.

October 5, 2016

Patient safety skills in primary care: a national survey of GP educators.

February 4, 2015

Identifying hot spots for harm and blind spots across the care pathway from patient complaints about general practice.

November 3, 2021

Organizing for Reliability: A Guide for Research and Practice.

January 30, 2019

The Nurse's Role in Promoting a Culture of Patient Safety.

August 17, 2005

March 11, 2020

Improving Patient Safety: The Intersection of Safety Culture, Clinician and Staff Support, and Patient Safety Organizations.

October 28, 2015

Hospital adoption of information technologies and improved patient safety: a study of 98 hospitals in Florida.

January 2, 2008

Preventing and mitigating radiology system failures: a guide to disaster planning.

February 2, 2022

Measured response to identified suicide risk and violence: what you need to know about psychiatric patient safety.

June 1, 2005

Awareness of human factors in the operating theatres during the COVID-19 pandemic.

January 13, 2021

Patient Safety Innovations

Awareness of human factors in the operating theatres during the COVID-19 pandemic

October 27, 2021

Impact of the Care Quality Commission on Provider Performance: Room for Improvement?

November 21, 2018

Special Issue on Resilience Engineering and High Reliability Organizations.

August 7, 2019

A perfect storm averted: flawed systems, a dropped ball, and cognitive biases delay a critical diagnosis.

November 2, 2022

The Safety Attitudes Questionnaire: psychometric properties, benchmarking data, and emerging research.

April 19, 2006

Teamwork in Healthcare.

September 23, 2015

NHS Redress Act 2006.

November 2, 2005

Actions to renew focus on safety culture.

May 24, 2023

Frequency of risk factors that potentially increase harm from medications in older adults receiving primary care.

January 23, 2008

Patient Safety Papers.

November 30, 2005

Contributions by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and Grantees.

April 15, 2009

Medication safety in the emergency department: a study of serious medication errors reported by 101 hospitals from 2011 to 2020.

March 30, 2022

A brief analysis of telemetry–related events.

January 14, 2020

Evaluating a handheld decision support device in pediatric intensive care settings.

July 17, 2019

Wrong-patient medication errors: an analysis of event reports in Pennsylvania and strategies for prevention.

June 12, 2013

Do patient engagement IT functionalities influence patient safety outcomes? A study of US hospitals.

August 10, 2022

Health literacy, medication errors, and health outcomes: is there a relationship?

July 5, 2006

Poor physician-patient communication and medical error.

June 30, 2021

Medical Residents and Burnout

May 12, 2021

Five new ways to advance diagnostic safety in your clinical practice.

August 23, 2023

National Cancer Institute–American Society of Clinical Oncology Teams in Cancer Care Project.

December 14, 2016

The National Emergency Department Safety Study: study rationale and design.

January 9, 2008

Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses.

April 30, 2008

Patient safety and the question of dignitary harms.

March 15, 2023

Working conditions that support patient safety.

October 12, 2005

Inappropriate prescribing of opioids for patients undergoing surgery.

December 21, 2022

The Shift Coupon: an innovative method to monitor adverse events.

January 18, 2006

Design of an evidence-based "second victim" curriculum for nurse anesthetists.

June 1, 2016

Fundamentals of diagnostic error in imaging.

October 10, 2018

LINNEAUS Collaboration on Patient Safety in Primary Care.

September 23, 2015

The analysis of hospital readmission rates after the implementation of hospital readmissions reduction program.

April 13, 2022

Safety in Numbers: Evidence-based Development of a Medicine Management Learning Tool.

May 22, 2013

When disasters strike the emergency department: a case series and narrative review.

November 10, 2021

Structural racism and the COVID-19 experience in the United States.

July 7, 2021

Using a patient safety/quality improvement model to assess telehealth for psychiatry and behavioral health services among special populations during COVID-19 and beyond.

September 1, 2021

Reducing pediatric medication errors: children are especially at risk for medication errors.

May 18, 2005

Swimming against the tide: primary care physicians' views on deprescribing in everyday practice.

August 23, 2017

Ambulatory medication safety in primary care: a systematic review.

July 6, 2022

Missed or Rationed Nursing Care.

December 9, 2020

Safety and Quality in Perioperative Anesthesia Care.

April 7, 2021

Safety in Anaesthesia.

June 15, 2011

Safety and Quality in Perioperative Anaesthesia Care.

June 23, 2021

Changes in early high-risk opioid prescribing practices after policy interventions in Washington State.

October 28, 2020

Rates of surgical consultations after emergency department admission in Black and White Medicare patients.

October 26, 2022

Disclosure after adverse medical outcomes: a multidimensional challenge.

November 13, 2019

Comparing perspectives on organisational silence: an analysis of the Gosport inquiry.

May 17, 2023

Adverse Events: Expecting too Much of Nurses and too Little of Nursing Research.

May 11, 2011

Risk Management in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

July 24, 2013

Special Section: Event Analysis and Risk Management.

October 14, 2020

Health Information Technology.

February 4, 2015

Risk, Safety and Reliability Special Issue.

May 20, 2009

CPOE: it don't come easy.

January 14, 2009

Instructions included? Why materials managers need to make safety training part of medical device procurement process.

June 16, 2010

"Water cooler" learning: knowledge sharing at the clinical "backstage" and its contribution to patient safety.

September 1, 2010

Positive Working Relationships Matter for Better Nurse and Patient Outcomes.

December 1, 2010

Insulin treatment as a tracer for identifying latent patient safety risks in home-based diabetes care.

March 22, 2006

Error reporting in organizations.

October 18, 2006

Simulation in Anaesthesia and Surgery.

May 13, 2015

Missed breast cancer: effects of subconscious bias and lesion characteristics.

August 5, 2020

Patient and health care professional perspectives on stigma in integrated behavioral health: barriers and recommendations.

March 15, 2023

Should we disclose harmful medical errors to patients? If so, how?

October 12, 2005

Understanding principles of high reliability organizations through the eyes of VIONE: a clinical program to improve patient safety by deprescribing potentially inappropriate medications and reducing polypharmacy.

February 5, 2020

Harms from discharge to primary care: mixed methods analysis of incident reports.

December 16, 2015

Is the test result correct? A questionnaire study of blood collection practices in primary health care.

July 7, 2010

Pharmacist transition-of-care services improve patient satisfaction and decrease hospital readmissions.

March 30, 2022

Perspective

The Role of the National Quality Forum (NQF) in the Quest for Transparency in U.S. Hospitals' Patient Safety Performance

April 1, 2010

Understanding and confronting our mistakes: the epidemiology of error in radiology and strategies for error reduction.

November 11, 2015

Visual illusions in radiology: untrue perceptions in medical images and their implications for diagnostic accuracy.

August 11, 2021

Miscarriage treatment-related morbidities and adverse events in hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, and office-based settings.

December 16, 2020

Where trust flourishes: perceptions of clinicians who trust their organizations and are trusted by their patients.

January 12, 2022

Safety considerations for IMRT.

August 10, 2011

Diagnostic Error in Medicine.

October 7, 2009

Patient-safety incidents during COVID-19 health crisis in France: An exploratory sequential multi-method study in primary care.

July 21, 2021

Quality and Safety Education.

August 12, 2009

Scaling-up a pharmacist-led information technology intervention (PINCER) to reduce hazardous prescribing in general practices: multiple interrupted time series study.

January 11, 2023

Association of provider specialty with abortion-related morbidity and adverse events among patients having procedural and medication abortions.

August 10, 2022

Development of a core drug list towards improving prescribing education and reducing errors in the UK.

March 2, 2011

High-Performance Work Systems in Health Care Management: Parts 1-5.

October 4, 2020

Fostering ethical conduct through psychological safety.

June 22, 2022

Agreement between patient-reported symptoms and their documentation in the medical record.

August 27, 2008

Patient safety in primary care: conceptual meanings to the health care team and patients.

November 25, 2020

Rethinking high reliability in healthcare: the role of error management theory towards advancing high reliability organizing.

February 13, 2019

Responding to health information technology reported safety events: insights from patient safety event reports.

June 12, 2019

Related Resources

Notes on healing after a missed diagnosis.

October 19, 2022

Clinician distress and inappropriate antibiotic prescribing for acute respiratory tract infections: a retrospective cohort study.

May 11, 2022

ISMP List of High-Alert Medications in Community/Ambulatory Healthcare.

October 1, 2021

Laboratory test ordering and results management systems: a qualitative study of safety risks identified by administrators in general practice.

March 12, 2014

Clinical Uncertainty in Primary Care: The Challenge of Collaborative Engagement.

March 5, 2014

Doing right by our patients when things go wrong in the ambulatory setting.

February 12, 2014

Findings and Lessons From the AHRQ Ambulatory Safety and Quality Program.

December 18, 2013

The effects of electronic prescribing by community-based providers on ambulatory medication safety.

December 4, 2013

Enhance patient safety by identifying and minimizing risk exposures affecting nurse practitioner practice.

November 20, 2013

Patient Safety Toolkits.

October 30, 2013

Root cause analysis reports help identify common factors in delayed diagnosis and treatment of outpatients.

August 21, 2013

What patients think doctors know: beliefs about provider knowledge as barriers to safe medication use.

August 14, 2013

Office-based physicians are responding to incentives and assistance by adopting and using electronic health records.

July 24, 2013

Advanced practice nursing students' identification of patient safety issues in ambulatory care.

April 10, 2013

Engaging Patients in Improving Ambulatory Care.

April 3, 2013

Usability of a computerised drug monitoring programme to detect adverse drug events and non-compliance in outpatient ambulatory care.

March 27, 2013

The Misdiagnosis of Breast Cancer.

March 20, 2013

Certain uncertainties: modes of patient safety in healthcare.

December 19, 2012

Electronic medical record availability and primary care depression treatment.

September 26, 2012

Patient safety perceptions of primary care providers after implementation of an electronic medical record system.

September 12, 2012

Physician patient communication failure facilitates medication errors in older polymedicated patients with multiple comorbidities.

September 12, 2012

Patient Safety: HHS Has Taken Steps to Address Unsafe Injection Practices, but More Action Is Needed.

August 15, 2012

Signal and noise: applying a laboratory trigger tool to identify adverse drug events among primary care patients.

August 1, 2012

Information distortion in physicians' diagnostic judgments.

July 18, 2012

Medication safety in primary care practice: results from a PPRNet quality improvement intervention.

July 11, 2012

Cognitive errors and logistical breakdowns contributing to missed and delayed diagnoses of breast and colorectal cancers: a process analysis of closed malpractice claims.

June 13, 2012

Prescribers' interactions with medication alerts at the point of prescribing: a multi-method, in situ investigation of the human–computer interaction.

June 6, 2012

Investigating the Prevalence and Causes of Prescribing Errors in General Practice: The PRACtICe Study.

May 16, 2012

A pharmacist-led information technology intervention for medication errors (PINCER): a multicentre, cluster randomised, controlled trial and cost-effectiveness analysis.

March 7, 2012

New 2011 survey of patients with complex care needs in eleven countries finds that care is often poorly coordinated.

December 30, 2011

See More About The Topic

General Internal Medicine