BACKGROUND Ineffective team communication is frequently at the root of medical error. The objective of this study was to describe the characteristics of communication failures in the operating room (OR) and to classify their effects. This study was part of a larger project to develop a team checklist to improve communication in the OR. METHODS Trained observers recorded 90 hours of observatio...

The National Health Service (NHS) has, for over four decades, been beset with numerous 'scandals' relating to poor patient care across several diverse clinical contexts. Ensuing inquiries proceed as though each scandal is unique, with recommendations highlighting the need for more staff training, a change of culture within the NHS based upon a 'duty of candour', and proposed criminal sanctions ...

A common complaint of normal aging is the increase in word-finding failures such as tip-of-the-tongue states (TOTs). Behavioral research identifies TOTs as phonological retrieval failures, and recent findings [Shafto, M. A., Burke, D. M., Stamatakis, E. A., Tam, P., & Tyler, L. K. On the tip-of-the-tongue: Neural correlates of increased word-finding failures in normal aging. Journal of Cognitiv...

Programs fail mainly for two reasons: logic errors in the code, and exception failures. Exception failures can account for up to 2/3 of system crashes [6], hence are worthy of serious attention. Traditional approaches to reducing exception failures, such as code reviews, walkthroughs and formal testing, while very useful, are limited in their ability to address a core problem: the programmer’s ...

Cognitive Biases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 658 Designer Error. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659 Systems Approaches to Error. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . .. . .659 Errors and Cognitive Biases-Implications for Design. .659 Human Expertise 659 Descriptive Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...

In a recent review (Giesbrecht, Lynn, Lilienfeld, & Merckelbach, 2008), we critically evaluated the research literature on cognitive processes in dissociation. In a comment, Bremner (2010) has voiced reservations about our contention that evidence for the causal role of trauma in dissociation is limited. In this reply, we argue that Bremner’s arguments are unconvincing and that a closer examina...