Many Errors By Medical Residents Caused By Teamwork Breakdowns, Lack Of Supervision

Older generations and younger generations...different thought processes sometimes...bridging the gap to bring both together for better health care...a challenge...BD

Attending physicians' failure to oversee the work of trainees was identified as a factor in 82 percent of the 129 cases where a lack of supervision contributed to a medical error, the study found. Supervision failures by both the senior resident and attending physician also played a contributing role.

Physicians-in-training are highly vulnerable to making medical errors that stem from teamwork breakdowns, especially a lack of supervision by experienced staff, according to a new study funded by HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Teamwork breakdowns involving medical residents, fellows and interns (first-year residents) also caused a significant number of errors to occur during patient handoffs, researchers found. The study, "Medical Errors Involving Trainees: A Study of Closed Malpractice Claims from 5 Insurers," appears in the October 22, 2007, issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.