Non-technical error leading to patient fatalities in the Australian surgical population.

Introduction: Many surgical adverse events are due to errors in non-technical skills (NTS); consequently, improving NTS is a priority. However, evidence to guide NTS improvement activities is lacking. This study aimed to investigate the incidence and characteristics of non-technical errors linked to fatalities in a large, representative surgical-patient population to guide future NTS improvement.

Lost in transcription - how accurately are we documenting the surgical ward round?

Background: Ward rounds are crucial to providing high-quality patient care in hospitals. Ward round quality is strongly linked to patient outcomes, yet ward round best practice is severely underrepresented in the literature. Accurate and thorough ward round documentation is essential to improving communication and patient outcomes.

Optimizing ward rounds: systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions to enhance patient safety.

Background: Poor quality ward rounds contribute to a large proportion of patient complications, delayed discharge, and increased hospital cost. This systematic review investigated all interventions aiming to improve patient and process-based outcomes in ward rounds.

Methods: This systematic review was prospectively registered in PROSPERO, the international prospective register of systematic reviews (CRD42023394325).

Development and validation of a novel tool for identification and categorization of non-technical errors associated with surgical mortality.

Background: Up to half of all surgical adverse events are due to non-technical errors, making non-technical skill assessment and improvement a priority. No specific tools are available to retrospectively identify non-technical errors that have occurred in surgical patient care. This original study aimed to develop and provide evidence of validity and inter-rater reliability for the System for Identification and Categorization of Non-technical Error in Surgical Settings (SICNESS).

Rural surgery: the Australian experience.

A significant proportion of the Australian population resides nonmetropolitan regions. For the majority of these smaller regional centers, the surgical service delivery has been traditionally provided by either solo or two-person surgical practices. As medical students' interest in rural practice declined, new models were created to ensure medical care in these areas.

Who will do general surgery?

Advantages to patients of a single anaesthetic for more than one operation are obvious; attracting generalist surgeons, training them and ensuring they have adequate credentials remain hurdles.

Is laparoscopic intraoperative cholangiogram a matter of routine?

Background: Intraoperative cholangiography during laparoscopic cholecystectomy reveals the anatomy of the biliary tree and any stones contained within it. The use of intraoperative cholangiography may be routine for all laparoscopic cholecystectomy. An alternative approach is a selective policy, performing intraoperative cholangiography only for those cases in which choledocholithiasis is suspected on clinical grounds, or those for which the anatomy appears unclear at operation.

Student attitudes to surgical teaching in provincial hospitals.

Objective: The ever-increasing pressure on metropolitan teaching hospitals to rationalise budgets and increase productivity has resulted in a dwindling amount of teaching opportunity for the medical student population. One solution to the problem was to utilise a largely untapped resource in South Australia, namely the provincial hospitals, however, student opinion regarding such a radical change had yet to be determined.

Design: A questionnaire was circulated among an entire year group of medical students who would be undertaking the revised surgical curriculum with rural attachments.

Surgical rotations in provincial South Australia: the trainees' perspective.

Background: Rural general surgery is faced with a shortage of resident surgeons in many parts of Australia. Although it is accepted that an undergraduate rural exposure favourably influences graduates to undertake rural practice, it is not known whether postgraduate terms exert a similar effect.

Method: Advanced general surgical trainees in 2000 were rotated for 1-month terms to Whyalla, a major provincial centre in South Australia.

Surgical undergraduate education in rural Australia.

Hypothesis: Surgical undergraduate education in a rural setting is feasible and sound in terms of educational outcomes.

Design: The final-year surgical curriculum at the University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, was restructured to include the option of a rural surgical term.

Setting: Five provincial center hospitals in rural South Australia.