Illustration by Malcolm Garris/PhotoDisc

 

No mistake about it:
Speaking up saves lives

By Valerie J. Nelson


What could airline safety possibly have to do with preventing errors in health care? Experts in both fields emphasize the importance of challenging authority. That could take the form of a second officer’s questioning a captain’s decision in order to keep a plane from going down or a nurse’s double-checking a physician’s scrawl to prevent a patient from receiving a lethal medication dose.

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