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California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: December 2, 2004
Latest Update: December 2, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Even Elite Hopsitals Need to Focus on the Fundamentals

After our discussions this semester on the problems with Martin Luther King Hospital, this article this morning seems to have a very familiar tone. Over time, as the pressures of day to day tasks overwhelms and personal lives and commitments require an ever faster pace of most of us, we get tired, we lose some of our dedicated concentration, and we screw up. It happens at the Duke University Hospital. It happens at Martin Luther King Hospital.

Some of us started out with more advantages (white privilege) in life, and so, under pressure, we can fall back on ingrained habits. Those with less intense training behind us are more likely to screw up. Yet we haven't been asking questions about the intensity and length of term of disciplined performance under stress. We just expect that we teach you, that you pass the certification test, that you now perform competently under all circumstances. Lots of unstated assumptions in there. And unstated assumptions can kill you. Martha Minow on Unstated Assumptions.

More later. It's Christmas, and I gotta go watch Kobe and Shaq. jeanne

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