Medical students do not always feel competent when it comes to patient safety concepts. In this study of German medical students, most understood the importance of patient safety, though few could identify concrete patient safety topics, such as near miss events or conditions that contribute to errors. Incorporating patient safety formally into medical education could improve students’ competence in these concepts.

Black patients who experience racism from their providers report receiving lower quality of care. Black public health students were asked about racist behaviors exhibited by their healthcare providers and the impacts the behaviors had on their care. The students recommend education and accountability to reduce providers’ racist attitudes, as well as increasing the number of Black clinicians.  

Clinical reasoning is now a common method to improve diagnostic decision making, and several tools have been developed to assess learners’ clinical reasoning. In this study, hospital faculty and pediatric interns used the Assessment of Reasoning Tool (ART) to assess, teach, and guide feedback on the interns’ clinical reasoning. Faculty and interns report the ART framework was highly structured, specific, formative, and facilitated goal setting.

Racism exacerbates health disparities and threatens patient safety. This article summarizes the relationship between structural racism and health disparities in the United States and highlights how racism impacts health care delivery and health outcomes for patients with sickle cell disease.

Premature diagnostic closure, also called anchoring bias, relies on initial diagnostic impression without continuing to explore differential diagnoses. This commentary proposes a cognitive forcing strategy of “endpoint diagnosis,” or continuing to ask “why” until additional diagnostic evaluations have been exhausted. The authors describe four common contexts when endpoint diagnoses are not pursued or reached.

Training in patient safety concepts is an important element of health professional education. This article describes learning objectives on patient safety generated by experts on patient safety and medical education. These learning objectives showed high correspondence with the WHO Patient Safety Curriculum Guide’s learning objectives.

Research with medical and surgical residents has shown they are frequently reluctant to speak up about safety and unprofessional behavior they observe. This study asked emergency medicine residents about their speaking up behaviors. Using the Speaking Up Climate (SUC)-Safe and SUC-Prof surveys, residents reported generally neutral responses to speaking up, more favorable than their medical and surgical counterparts. In line with other studies, residents were more likely to speak up about patient safety than about unprofessional behaviors.

Learning to recover after a medical error is an important component of medical training. This qualitative study, which included postgraduate trainees from Europe and Canada, concluded that failure represents a valuable learning opportunity, but noted the importance of perceived intentions if trainees judge that their supervisors have allowed them to fail.

Research into the impact of racism on health outcomes has increased in recent years, but there has been less emphasis on ageism or the intersection of ageism and racism. This commentary highlights the ways racism (e.g., clinical algorithms), ageism (e.g., proposed measures to ration care) and the intersection of the two (increased morbidity and mortality of COVID-19 on older people of color) impacts health outcomes. Recommendations for current clinicians and health profession educators are provided.

Healthcare trainees and junior clinicians are often reluctant to speak up about safety concerns. This qualitative study found that simulation training to enhance speaking up behaviors had lasting effects among advanced care paramedics and respiratory therapists as they moved from training into practice. Respondents highlighted the importance of experience for speaking up and the benefits of high-impact simulation training.

Effective teamwork training for surgical teams can improve post-operative mortality rates. This review aimed to evaluate the effect of a dedicated surgical team (e.g., a team who received technical and/or communication teamwork training) on clinical and performance outcomes. Implementation of dedicated surgical teams resulted in improved mortality rates, but no difference in readmission rates or length of stay.

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) includes work hour restrictions in its Common Program Requirements. The focus of this review is the impact of resident work hour restrictions on patient- and resident-level outcomes. Shorter shift hours were associated with some improved resident outcomes and but no association with patient outcomes.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to dramatic changes in healthcare delivery. The multi-country PRICOV-19 study evaluated how primary care practices reorganized their day-to-day work during the pandemic and the impacts on patient safety culture. This study compared training vs. non-training primary care practices and found that training practices had a stronger safety culture during the pandemic.

Trans and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) people may delay or avoid seeking healthcare due to experiences with biased or uninformed providers. This study focuses specifically on obstetric and gynecological care providers who provide care to TGNC people. Participants described challenges at the clinic level (e.g., needing at least one knowledgeable and interested clinician) and administrative level (e.g., trans men who have a cervix do not get automatic reminders for PAP tests) that can prevent TGNC people from receiving equitable care.

This survey compared factors influencing opinions about patient-safety-related behaviors among medical students and physicians compared to the general public in Australia. Respondents had significantly different opinions on several of the hypothetical patient safety scenarios used in the survey. Findings suggest that physician and medical student opinions are often influenced by cognitive dissonance, biases, and heuristics.

Simulation training is used to improve technical and nontechnical skills among healthcare teams. This study evaluated the impact of a one-hour interdisciplinary in situ simulation training on code response, teamwork, communication and comfort during intraoperative resuscitations. After simulation training, researchers noted improvements in technical skills of individuals and teams (e.g., CPR-related technical skills).

Several countries have resident duty hour (RDH) restrictions and there are numerous publications examining the impact of RDH on patient safety. This study used two online discussion forums (one primarily in the United States and the other in Canada) to assess resident perceptions of RDH. Themes included its impact on residents’ education and clinician well-being, and, worryingly, discussions of not reporting RDH violations.