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Do house officers learn from their mistakes?

A W Wu1, S Folkman, S J McPhee

  • 1Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, USA.

Quality & Safety in Health Care
|June 7, 2003
PubMed

Insights

Medical mistakes are common, with serious outcomes for patients. Discussing errors and accepting responsibility leads to practice changes, while job overload and judgmental institutions hinder learning.

Area of Science:

  • Medical Education
  • Patient Safety
  • Internal Medicine

Background:

  • Medical errors are unavoidable and significantly impact patient outcomes.
  • Understanding the relationship between medical mistakes and practice changes is crucial for improving healthcare.
  • Internal medicine house officers frequently encounter and respond to medical errors.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how medical mistakes influence subsequent practice changes among internal medicine house officers.
  • To identify factors associated with constructive versus defensive changes in medical practice following errors.
  • To explore the role of communication and responsibility in the learning process from medical errors.

Main Methods:

  • Anonymous questionnaire survey administered to 254 internal medicine house officers.
  • 114 house officers (45%) completed the survey detailing their most significant mistake and response.
  • Data collected on mistake categories (diagnosis, prescribing, evaluation, communication, procedural complications) and patient outcomes.

Main Results:

  • Mistakes encompassed diagnosis (33%), prescribing (29%), evaluation (21%), communication (5%), and procedural complications (11%).
  • Serious adverse patient outcomes occurred in 90% of cases, including death in 31%.
  • House officers accepting responsibility and discussing errors were more likely to report constructive practice changes; job overload and judgmental institutions were associated with defensive changes.

Conclusions:

  • Open discussion of medical errors and acceptance of responsibility are key to fostering constructive practice changes.
  • Reducing workload and providing closer supervision can help prevent medical mistakes.
  • Faculty encouragement of responsibility and discussion is vital for promoting learning from errors in medical training.

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