Learning to cure with care: awareness of faculty and medical students about student's roles related to patient safety

Objective: To explore the awareness of faculty and medical students about students' roles with respect to patient safety and to define the domains that should be made a part of undergraduate curriculum.

Methods: The descriptive exploratory qualitative research was conducted from December 2016 to March 2017 at Islamic International Medical College, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and comprised faculty members and final year medical students. World Health Organisation patient safety curriculum guideline for undergraduate medical schools was taken as the reference. Initially 12 codes for faculty and 18 for students were formed which were later reduced to 6 themes: importance of patient safety education; importance of strong student-patient relationship; code of conduct; students and effective team; students' part in management plans; and students and medical errors. Sub themes were also defined. Thematic narrative analysis was done using Atlas ti software.

Results: Of the 30 participants, 12(40%) were faculty members and 18(60%) were students. All (100%) the participants were of the view that patient safety is an important issue, especially for the future doctors and young professionals. All (100%) the participants were aware of the importance of a strong and trustworthy relationship between the patients and doctors. All (100%) the participants suggested that the students must follow proper code of conduct when they come to the wards. The participants advocated the need of establishing a system and culture where students can go and report an error comfortably. The participants identified defective communication to be one of the leading causes of medical errors.

Conclusions: The need to bring reforms in medical curriculum with respect to patient safety was stressed.