Brenner, Michael

Academic medical centers striving to implement diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and antiracism initiatives often ask faculty to volunteer substantial time to committee work, recruitment, mentoring, community, and administrative responsibilities. These requests are not in lieu of current workload and seldom count toward scholarship; the service may go unrecognized, unrewarded, and uncompensated. URiM faculty (underrepresented in medicine) providing such service thus pay a minority tax when precious time is syphoned away from career‐advancing activities and personal growth. The resulting strain on available resources has social, psychological, and monetary ramifications that can undermine the long‐term objectives of DEI initiatives. We examine the facets of the minority tax, consider the current state of diversity, and present a roadmap to redistribute, reform, and reduce URiM taxation through shared engagement in DEI initiatives. Key interventions include ascribing value to DEI efforts, implementing evidence‐based policies to reduce bias, and promoting mentorship, sponsorship, and allyship.

With increasing emphasis on patient safety/quality improvement, health care systems are mirroring industry in the implementation of root cause analysis (RCA) for the identification and mitigation of errors. RCA uses a team approach with emphasis on the system, as opposed to the individual, to accrue empirical data on what happened and why. While many otolaryngologists have a broad understanding of RCA, practical experience is often lacking. Part II of this patient safety/quality improvement primer investigates the manner in which RCA is utilized in the prevention of medical errors. Attention is given to identifying system errors, recording adverse events, and determining which events warrant RCA. The primer outlines steps necessary to conduct an effective RCA, with emphasis placed on actions that arise from the RCA process through the root cause analysis and action (or RCA2) rubric. In addition, the article provides strategies for the implementation of RCA into clinical practice and medical education.

ObjectiveTo assess the impact of implementing a dedicated Patient Safety and Quality Improvement (PSQI) curriculum for otolaryngology residents.MethodsResidents in two otolaryngology residency programs were recruited to participate in the study. Residents at institution A (intervention group) participated in a formal, newly developed, year‐long PSQI curriculum. Residents at institution B (control group) participated in traditional, morbidity, and mortality conference‐based PSQI education, with no formal curriculum in place. Curriculum participants completed anonymous surveys to assess learner satisfaction. Validated instruments were administered to assess for changes in resident confidence in the ability to develop PSQI projects, their attitudes toward patient safety, and PSQI‐related knowledge. The number and quality of PSQI‐related resident projects were also assessed.ResultsSurvey responses demonstrated excellent learner satisfaction with the curriculum. Based on validated instrument‐based responses, both programs demonstrated similar confidence scores (P = 0.05), safety attitudes (P = 0.82), and PSQI knowledge (P = 0.29) at the beginning of the year. The residents of institution A demonstrated significant improvement in confidence (P = 0.00009) and knowledge (P = 0.0006) after completing the curriculum, with no improvement noted for residents at institution B in either confidence (P = 0.06) or knowledge (P = 0.79). Neither program demonstrated improvement in attitudes toward patient safety at the end of the year‐long curriculum.ConclusionImplementing a formal curriculum dedicated to PSQI led to an improvement in PSQI‐related project development confidence and PSQI knowledge. Attitudes toward safety did not improve over the course of a year. Longer‐term studies involving multiple institutions and other interventions are needed to evaluate the impact and duration of changes that occur.Level of Evidence1b Laryngoscope, 129:1100–1106, 2019