Patient Safety Education: An Exploration of Student-Driven Contextual Learning

Medical and nursing students organized a contextual interprofessional learning experience involving observation of surgical safety practices according to the parameters of the World Health Organization (WHO) surgical safety checklist. Students were oriented to patient safety principles, operating room (OR) protocol, and the WHO surgical safety checklist. One hundred thirty students participated in interprofessional OR visitations. Selected students participated in focus groups, during which feedback regarding educational value and OR observations was obtained: Students thought that patient safety education was more meaningful in a clinical setting, and the degree of interprofessional collaboration appeared related to individual factors. Focus group data collected provides a foundation on which future research can build. Areas of inquiry may include development of teamwork within the context of interprofessional education, examination of the role of students in developing their own curricula, and randomized comparisons of clinical-based and classroom-based approaches to surgical safety education.