Gender, racial, and ethnic disparities in healthcare can adversely impact patient safety and lead to poor outcomes. This retrospective study examined surgeon-patient sex discordance and perioperative outcomes among adult patients in Ontario, Canada, undergoing common elective or emergent surgical procedures from 2007 to 2019. Among 1.3 million patients, sex discordance between surgeon and patient was associated with a significant increased likelihood of adverse perioperative outcomes, including death. Subgroup analyses indicate that this relationship is driven by worse outcomes among female patients treated by male surgeons.

This commentary draws parallels between experiences in viewing and exploring meaning in modern art to the challenge of diagnosis. The author discusses how experiences, values, and opinions can affect the interpretation and influence decision-making.

Health care is working to provide high-value care and prevent overuse while ensuring patient safety. This commentary highlights the importance of educational initiatives, mentors, and use of clinical decision support to help clinicians determine what amount of care is appropriate for a given clinical situation.

To reduce opioid risk, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that frontline providers minimize the number of opioid tablets they prescribe for acute pain. This pre–post study examined the effect of implementing a 10-tablet default prescription in the electronic medical record in two urban emergency departments. The intervention changed prescribing habits but did not reduce the already low overall number of tablets prescribed. Two PSNet perspectives explore the intersection of patient safety and the opioid epidemic.

Reliance on information technology has surfaced a myriad of unintended consequences. This commentary highlights the importance of the physician–patient encounter and how such interactions have diminished with the implementation of electronic health records. The authors caution against the downsides of heuristics, cognitive errors, and implicit bias during the initial exam and underscore the value of contextual information gathered from personal interaction.

Storytelling has been advocated as a strategy to teach and augment awareness in patient safety. In this commentary, the author relates a personal anecdote to illustrate how assumptions can affect clinical reasoning and provides lessons to broaden clinician thinking when working toward determining a diagnosis.

This survey of academic intensivist physicians found that although most reported participating in end-of-shift handoffs, the handoff process varied across institutions. Satisfaction with handoff procedures was suboptimal, and a significant proportion of respondents could recall an adverse event related to handoffs. This suggests that despite extensive work in this area, handoffs remain a persistent safety vulnerability.

Cognitive gaps and shortcuts, or heuristics, can result in diagnostic mistakes. This commentary explores decision making in health care and suggests incorporating education about cognitive heuristics into morbidity and mortality rounds to inform improvement efforts and enhance care safety.

… training since the landmark Libby Zion case in 1984, Drs. Halpern and Detsky review both the intended and unintended effects of … duty hours and the balance of autonomy with oversight. … Halpern SD, Detsky AS. Graded autonomy in medical …

Summarizing why patients may avoid speaking up and asking questions about their care, this commentary offers solutions to address communication barriers.

Around-the-clock staffing with faculty intensive care specialists did not improve clinical outcomes in a medical intensive care unit, compared with the traditional staffing model of daytime-only attending physicians.

Exploring the impact of 24-hour intensivist coverage on patient safety, this piece advocates for research to understand how a nocturnal intensivist program can influence staffing needs and medical education.