Surgical checklists

This a good interview of a Harvard Surgeon on what goes on in the operating room and what is being done (checklists) to reduce errors. It's quite amusing because he addresses the hubris of the medical profession head on. He makes it clear that the lack of humility in claiming that the high and mighty surgeon does not need a checklist is ridiculous because, with today's modern technology, no human can keep it all in their head. Just like pilots, surgeons need checklists. The UK has adopted them and they are now voluntary in the USA. Already, the number of errors has dropped in the UK due to surgical team checklists.
Note that link refers to President Obama but that is the least the doctor talks about.

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/1/5/dr_atul_gawande_on_obamas_frustrating_record_on_healthcare_reform_and__the_checklist_manifesto

2 Comments

Check lists

by ElectricFrank - 2011-01-06 11:01:54

Interesting you should mention checklists. I am a (inactive) pilot and always kept a checklist on my clipboard while flying. Now I have one for my RV that I go through before driving away.

The only problem with the kind used by multiple people like in the operating room is that they can become too routine. If one normally reliable person OK's the item the rest will give the same answer.

For me the best checklist is being awake and alert myself if it is possible. I was during both my implant and replacement and listened to every item on the list. Being the person the list it about sure can make a person alert.

frank

Yep

by agelbert - 2011-01-07 06:01:37

It sure can. I was awake during an emergency appendectomy when I was 23 (they did a spinal to put the bottom part of my celoma asleep). There they were, "click, tick, click, tick, what?" Now that got my attention. I said, "Why did you say WHAT?". They then gave me local and I was out of it. Some days after the operation the surgeon explained that my appendix wasn't where it was supposed to be. That's where the "WHAT?" came from. He said he used my intestine as a road map and found the exploded appendix up against my spinal chord. What fun.

As to the checklist, we had a near midair collision at the enroute air traffic control center where I worked due to a faulty quicky briefing when I relieved a guy so he could take a phone call. I almost killed 200 people because the guy I relieved forgot to mention a vector he had someone on. There were other national incidents no one knows about that led to the mandatory briefing checklists for ATC.
Please watch the video. That is a doctor than will save many lives, I believe. Remember Frank, we aren't always in control.

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