This book offers a perspective not often addressed in medicine and medical education: errors or misadventures in patient care and education. In 1999, a white paper was created by the Institute of Medicine—"To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System"—that addressed errors made around patient care and what that cost is in lives and dollars to the public each year. This initiative resulted in more safeguards in the system, including attention to quality improvement. In fact, whereas there has been a focus on patient safety since that paper, the same emphasis has been lacking in medical education, the foundation of which represents how we teach future physicians. There currently are no other books on the topics of patient care and education, with Jerome Groopman''s Book on ‘’How Doctors Think’’ being one of the few publications that focuses on errors in patient care but not necessarily how to avoid or correct those errors.
This book is divided into major activities for those faculty in academic health settings, physicians and non-physicians, who assume the major responsibility for teaching, patient care, educational scholarship, mentoring, and administrative duties. These are, by definition, clinician educators (CE) and include all those in academic health centers, physicians and non-physicians who care for patients and teach future practitioners. In fact, medical and health science students in addition to resident trainees would benefit from reading this book as they traverse curricula aimed at educating future practitioners. The book is divided into sections based on responsibilities noted above, e.g., teaching and patient care, and I point out common errors in the healthcare team performance, with comments on how to address those errors. I cover all the responsibilities of clinician educators in academic medical centers, including leadership or administrative skills. The content is largely based on the author''s long experience as a CE in addition to evidence-based information about patient care and educational theory.