More than 50 students, from schools of medicine, pharmacy and nursing descended on the Jefferson School of Population Health for a weekend-long immersion in patient safety and quality movement.
Led by faculty from JSPH, and including leaders from Penn, Vanderbilt, Hofstra and the AAMC, these students were exposed to the latest thinking in curriculum design, experiential learning and safety simulation. The didactic presentations, facilitated workshops, and project presentations were all first rate.
Key themes emerged – insufficient faculty in the health sciences to teach the tenets of quality and safety, insufficient curriculum time devoted to these critical issues and, above all else, a lack of urgency in most schools responsible for career preparation for health professionals. This, despite the fact that 11 persons die every hour in our great nation from preventable medical errors!! That means nearly 300 persons perished during the formal part of our weekend-long teaching and learning event.
We ended the weekend with a checklist of ideas to implement "tomorrow" and a call for renewed energy for curricula and system reform.
For me, it was both an energizing experience to work with so many wonderful students from around the nation, and physically exhausting trying to keep up with their level of enthusiasm for all three days!! I am grateful for their total participation in this annual event and look forward to giving one of the three "Thought Leader" presentations at the 1,000-student strong AMSA Annual Convention on March 11, 2011 in Washington DC.
Are you learning about safety to save lives in your health system??
DAVID NASH
