Supporting the pursuit of professionalism during a crisis.

Background: Crisis plans for healthcare organisations most often focus on operational needs including staffing, supplies and physical plant needs. Less attention is focused on how leaders can support and encourage individual clinical team members to conduct themselves as professionals during a crisis.

Methods: This qualitative study analysed observations from 79 leaders at 160 hospitals that participate in two national professionalism programmes who shared their observations in focus group discussions about what they believed were the essential elements of leading and addressing professional accountability during a crisis.

Neurologists for patient safety: where we stand, time to deliver.

Neurologists have a professional opportunity, an ethical responsibility, and sound clinical and economic reasons for engaging in efforts to improve patient safety. Better communication with patients and other providers, closer follow-up of consultation cases, and more focused supervision of trainees will help to reduce current patterns of error and misunderstanding. Patient education with attention to health literacy should improve adherence to management plans and help to bridge transitions of care across providers and sites.