Medical Staff Development – Discipline of Safety

Physicians require discipline to participate on a quality medical staff. There is the discipline of personal integrity, the discipline of good interpersonal relationships, the discipline of professional development and the discipline of safety. The medical staff, through the person(s) of its officer(s) requires the same menu of disciplines. If there is a place to re-establish lost discipline, it is in the area of safety. Here is a point on which the hospital, physicians and public agree. A hospitalization should be safe. For all of that, physicians, even respected physicians try to reclaim their lost autonomy by ignoring hospital safety protocols. Just think how difficult it is to achieve compliance on the simple safety procedure of washing hands between patients. Medical science has only known about the benefits of hand washing for over 100 years. There is a problem with discipline. When the medical staff officers fail to enforce, they fail an important integrity test.