Perspectives

Dr. Brice is Professor and Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of North Carolina. She also serves as the Program Director for the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Fellowship and was past-president of the National Association of EMS Physicians. We spoke with her about her experience working in emergency medical systems and safety concerns particular to this field.

Dr. Haas is an obstetrician–gynecologist and co-Principal Investigator for Ariadne Labs' work focused on health care system expansion. We spoke with her about the trend of health systems getting larger and more integrated, the risks to patient safety, and ways to mitigate these risks.

Dr. Skochelak is the Group Vice President for Medical Education at the American Medical Association (AMA). She leads the AMA's Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative, which aims to align physician training with the changing needs of our health care system. We spoke with her about her experience in medical education.

Dr. Dixon-Woods is RAND Professor of Health Services Research at Cambridge University, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of BMJ Quality and Safety, and one of the world's leading experts on the sociology of health care. We spoke with her about new ways to approach safety culture.

Sir Liam Donaldson, MD, MSc, is England's Chief Medical Officer, a post often referred to as "the Nation's Doctor" (similar to the role of the U.S. Surgeon General). Trained as a surgeon, Sir Liam has been an inspirational leader in public health and health care quality in the United Kingdom for two decades. He has also emerged as a world leader in the patient safety field, authoring or commissioning dozens of influential reports, and serving as the founding chair of the World Health Organization's World Alliance for Patient Safety. We spoke to him about patient safety from an international perspective.