Abstract
BackgroundRecent educational initiatives by both the World Health Organization and the American Association of Medical Colleges have endorsed integrating teaching of patient safety and quality improvement (QI) to medical students. Curriculum development should take into account learners’ attitudes and preferences. We surveyed students to assess preferences and attitudes about QI and patient safety education.MethodsAn electronic survey was developed through focus groups, literature review, and local expert opinion and distributed via email to all medical students at a single medical school in the spring of 2012.ResultsA greater proportion of students reported previous exposure to patient safety than to quality improvement topics (79% vs. 47%). More than 80% of students thought patient safety was of the same or greater importance than basic science or clinical skills whereas quality improvement was rated as the same or more important by about 70% of students. Students rated real life examples of quality improvement projects and participation in these projects with actual patients as potentially the most helpful (mean scores 4.2/5 and 3.9/5 respectively). For learning about patient safety, real life examples of mistakes were again rated most highly (mean scores 4.5/5 for MD presented mistakes and 4.1/5 for patient presented mistakes). Students rated QI as very important to their future career regardless of intended specialty (mean score 4.5/5).ConclusionsTeaching of patient safety and quality improvement to medical students will be best received if it is integrated into clinical education rather than solely taught in pre-clinical lectures or through independent computer modules. Students recognize that these topics are important to their careers as future physicians regardless of intended specialty.
Highlights
Recent educational initiatives by both the World Health Organization and the American Association of Medical Colleges have endorsed integrating teaching of patient safety and quality improvement (QI) to medical students
Data analysis We report student characteristics, previous exposure to patient safety and quality improvement, preferences for curriculum timing and teaching method, and relative importance of patient safety and quality improvement in the medical school curriculum using frequencies or means with a standard deviation when appropriate
The demographics of students who participated in our survey were very similar to the medical student population in general
Summary
Recent educational initiatives by both the World Health Organization and the American Association of Medical Colleges have endorsed integrating teaching of patient safety and quality improvement (QI) to medical students. Quality improvement (QI) has been a focus in the US and internationally in the past decade [2] Both the World Health Organization (WHO) [3] and the American Association of Medical. Some authors have proposed that witnessing the various ways in which mistakes are handled is an effective way to integrate patient safety training into the clinical years of medical school [11]. One UK school implemented a 5-hour module on patient safety that included lectures, videos, and role playing, and found a year later that knowledge and perceived control over safety had improved, but attitudes had not [12]
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