Curriculum "Patient Safety" for Undergraduate Medical Students at the Department of Surgery, University of Greifswald

Background: Risk reducing measures like the surgical checklist have been proven to reduce effectively adverse events and improve patient safety and teamwork among surgical staff members. Nevertheless, many physicians still refuse to use even simple safety tools like the WHO checklist. A progress in patient safety can only be achieved by changing the operating proceedings and mentality of medical students. This is best performed by teaching patient safety already very early in the medical education. Method: The present study demonstrates the implementation and evaluation of the curriculum "patient safety" for undergraduate medical students in the 4th year of medical school at the Department of Surgery, University of Greifswald. 141 students evaluated a total of six lectures from April to October 2011. Results: The results indicate that young medical students show great enthusiasm in safety matters and are willing to adopt the principles. Especially the importance of the issue and the didactic design were evaluated as being very high. Conclusion: The curriculum "patient safety" as part of the training program in medical school is a powerful and effective educational tool that is able to raise the student's awareness of patient safety affairs. Thereby it is crucial to start early within medical education during the phase of socialisation. We recommend the general implementation of a patient safety curriculum in medical school.