“What’s new (and what isn’t) in improving quality and safety in healthcare”

View full length video of Mary’s lecture

The Lecture was introduced by Patrick Maxwell, Regius Professor of Physic here at the Clinical School, who said: ‘It was a real tour de force both in terms of presentation style (how many lecturers can get through 219 slides in 50 minutes and still keep their audience spellbound?) and content. The key take-home messages were that we should not expect ‘magic bullets’ to solve safety issues in health care; that evaluations of improvements needs to be rigorous; and that we need to be smarter about communicating the lessons that we do learn. The talk was interspersed with many illustrations from illuminated manuscripts and personal anecdotes. I particularly liked Mary’s story of falling for the ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’ fallacy; she developed measles after eating potatoes as a child and has thoroughly disliked them ever since’.

 

Top Image: Mary Dixon-Woods with Patrick Maxwell, Phil Mynott Photography