Abstract
Patient safety in surgery has historically suffered from a lack of physician-driven initiatives aimed at recognizing, preventing, and mitigating medical errors and surgical complications. In spite of a multiplicity of global patient safety initiatives, the pertinent surgical safety protocols fall short of protecting patients from suffering unintended harm and adverse outcomes. A surgeon-driven leadership with unwavering advocacy for patient safety checklists and non-technical skills, including effective communication and individual accountability, is needed to build and sustain an encompassing culture of patient safety in analogy to the “high reliability” paradigm from other high-risk industries.
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Stahel, P.F., Stahel, V.P. (2022). Principles of Surgical Patient Safety. In: Pape, HC., Borrelli Jr., J., Moore, E.E., Pfeifer, R., Stahel, P.F. (eds) Textbook of Polytrauma Management . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95906-7_44
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