Learning Communities IMM Unit 1: Managing Medical Error

School of Medicine

Medical errors threaten the moral sense of self of the physician. All physicians commit errors, some of them costly in terms of increased patient morbidity and mortality while others are just nagging reminders of our professional limitations. Learning how to respond to one’s own errors in responsible and healthy ways is necessary to practicing medicine successfully and maintaining one’s ethical equilibrium. In addition, exploring how to best respond to and support our teammates when they commit errors can equip us to provide peer-support to our colleagues. As hard as it is to manage our own medical errors, apologizing for those errors can be even more challenging. Learning when and how to say "I'm sorry" is an important skill that can help our patients, and ourselves, process medical errors and move forward in constructive ways. This session will explore the ethical challenges and implications in addressing this developmentally important issue for becoming mature practitioners of medicine.