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Viewpoints
Tuesday, July 02, 2019
The disabilities we don't see
by Lisa Meeks, PhD
More than 90% of medical students with disabilities have conditions that aren't obvious: learning disabilities, ADHD, psychological disabilities, and chronic health conditions.
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
What can we learn from an epidemic?
by Atul Grover, MD, PhD, FACP, FCCP
AAMC Executive Vice President Atul Grover says we can use the lessons of the AIDS epidemic in the 1990s to inform our work today around the opioid crisis.
Tuesday, June 04, 2019
When patients lie
by Angela Fagerlin, PhD
As many as 8 in 10 patients conceal significant information from their providers. A patient-physician communication expert reveals the truth — and consequences — of patient coverups.
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Prioritizing the service mission
by David Lubarsky, MD, MBA
Competing priorities caused one health system to cut back on caring for the underserved. Here’s how they turned that around.
In 1999, in its pioneering report To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) revealed that as many as 98,000 patients died from preventable medical errors in U.S. hospitals each year.
Twenty years later, such errors remain a serious concern, with tens of thousands of patients experiencing harm each year. But while much work remains, the patient safety movement has achieved several significant successes, experts say.
Today, patient harm from medical errors is no longer considered inevitable, notes Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD, a safety expert and the chief clinical transformation officer at University Hospitals in Ohio. “What really changed was the narrative we told” about medicine’s ability to avoid safety problems, he says. “It’s both hopeful and humbling where we’ve been.”
Underlying many of the advances in patient safety is a fundamental reenvisioning of the causes — and cures — for medical mistakes. “We've learned that errors in health care are not typically related to a single person’s error or lack of education,” says Janis Orlowski, MD, AAMC chief health care officer. “Now it is thought that mistakes often occur because of a series of miscommunications, loss of information, or other system errors.”
Academic Medicine in the News
Friday, July 05, 2019
Medical students use television to address health disparities
The Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association at the Medical College of Wisconsin is partnering with a Milwaukee-based television program to address health disparities in Milwaukee’s local Hmong community. Students discuss health topics during a segment on WMLW-TV’s monthly Nyob Zoo Milwaukee TV, a local program targeting the Hmong population in Wisconsin.
Friday, July 05, 2019
String quartets teach medical students the art of nonverbal communication
The Emerson String Quartet and the Thalea String Quartet visited Wayne State University School of Medicine to teach a cohort of third-year medical students how they use breathing, facial expressions, physical gestures, and oral communication to better their musical performances, and how those same principles can be applied to physician-patient and interprofessional communication.
Friday, July 05, 2019
Female medical students provide outreach to pregnant teens
APOYO, an adolescent pregnancy program run by medical students from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, provides unique opportunities for first- and second-year female medical students to help pregnant teens in the community while creating long lasting relationships.
