With this patient, I am most concerned about....

I attended the OR Excellence conference last week in San Francisco and had the pleasure of hearing Martin A. Makary, MD, MPH speak about working toward a error free surgical workplace. His speach was filled with easy to implement procedural changes, the importance of working as a team and some enlightening statistics about outcomes.

One of the easiest to implement changes that suck with me was this statement...With this patient, I am most concerned about__________. The idea for this statement was the result of late night calls Marty (another tip: first names make MDs more approachable) received from the hospital about his patients. He always knew who the call was about, what the problem was and what needed to be done as soon heard the phone ring. He eventually realized that wasn't sharing his thoughts and concerns with those left to care for his patients. And so he started using the statement to keep everyone informed of his concerns at every transition point in the process.

We all have an inner voice that sounds when we're concerned, but do you take the time to articulate your thoughts? Probably not because few do. But it's something that we can all start doing today and it may be something that rubs off on others too!