Risk assessment is a standard tool in health care systems which is used to improve patient safety. Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) as a powerful risk assessment tool for safety and reliability widely applied by industries such as aerospace, nuclear, automotive, chemical, mechanical, medical technologies, and electronics. FMEA is popular technique, but it has some substantial deficienci...

By John R. Shepperd There are medical mishaps that have been deemed “Never Events” by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). This term refers generally to preventable occurrences so egregious that they should never occur. But they do occur. And when they do, litigation often follows. This article focuses on one such Never Event—the operating room fire—with strategies on how to defe...

BACKGROUND Medical students often have limited opportunities for clinical exposure in the first and second years of training, especially in the operating room setting. We describe one approach designed to address this deficiency. The West Virginia University externship in anesthesia provides students with first-hand experience observing and performing common procedures. METHODS Six externs wo...