Situational awareness and theatre practitioner education

Abstract

Following his wife's death during anaesthesia, the husband of the late Elaine Bromiley began an initiative, based on aspects of his training as a pilot, that was a catalyst for the inception of the World Health Organization checklist for surgery and team briefings in theatre. This paper describes the background to this and also suggests how the crew resource management aspect of his training highlights situational awareness. This is a concept that can be used to augment the development of operating department practitioners and theatre practitioners by getting them to think and transfer the perception of the environment across contexts from aircraft to operating theatre.