Article
The concept of an open reporting culture in dentistry was first discussed in Dental Update by Captain Steve Hawkins in a publication in November 20171 and followed up in an editorial2 in January of this year. In that, readers were invited to give their views on whether they would support a one-page feature in Dental Update in which readers would share near misses in which a disaster affecting a tooth/teeth and patient was narrowly avoided or, when something went wrong, nearly went wrong, or equally valuably, when something went very right. We wrote: It is our view that this initiative will not only help in the provision of care for patients (our primary consideration) but also reduce the number of adverse medicolegal situations in which dentists find themselves, as well as leading to a greater awareness, by bodies like the General Dental Council, of the difficulties which dentists find themselves in on a daily basis while treating patients. The response has been overwhelming, with examples of emails supportive of the concept being:
‘I am writing in support of the idea of including clinical experiences to help avoid adverse clinical situations: having been qualified for 6 years, I know that informal peer to peer sharing of near misses has improved my clinical knowledge and helped me in not making mistakes.’
‘I am a young dentist and an avid reader of Dental Update and support the initiative – I hope this gets off the ground!’
‘My opinion is that adverse incident reporting is a good thing and can only improve clinical care in dentistry.’
‘I am in support of this excellent idea.
‘I think that the idea of dentists being able to report clinical experiences, good and bad, anonymously to be excellent. Let's all share experiences to get experienced!’
‘I was so pleased to read the recent Comment in DU regarding open reporting culture and also the issue focusing on risk. I recently delivered some Human Factors training and so have heard first hand about the concerns surrounding reporting cultures and litigation.’
‘I read with interest the Comment page in January's edition of Dental Update and would be very keen to encourage this kind of conversation. I hope your suggestion has been met with enthusiasm. I will discuss with colleagues about how we can help promote this section within Dental Update.’
‘I would wholeheartedly support any initiative in order to reduce the number of adverse medico-legal situations in which dentists find themselves, as well as leading to a greater awareness, by bodies like the General Dental Council, of the difficulties which dentists find themselves in on a daily basis while treating patients.’
‘There is a big fear within the profession not to ‘look stupid’ in front of their peers. I see this a lot on Facebook groups, where people are slaughtered by their peers for ‘stupid’ comments. We have to fight this culture, this feature should help’.
‘I feel that it is important to share learning points and to encourage a more supportive environment in sharing mistakes and how we can learn from them: however, we also need to develop a more open culture for sharing our shortfalls as well as when everything goes well. No-one is perfect and our profession is one of life-long learning and development.’
In this issue of Dental Update we therefore publish the first ‘I learnt about dentistry from that’. We propose that this will become a regular feature, initially in print, and that, ultimately, it will become a discussion forum on the Dental Update website. We therefore ask readers to share their experiences. A paragraph or two is all that is needed. This can be submitted to a secure email address tburke@georgewarman.co.uk, away from prying eyes (for the reporting of adverse incidents). With that in mind, we propose to publish the reports anonymously so that the correspondent will not have anxieties with respect to potentially interested authorities and that there is no risk of ‘looking silly’.