The Academy for Emerging Leaders in Patient Safety: developing a community of practice.

Background: There is a high incidence of preventable error in health care. Many of these errors are the result of poor teamwork between different health professionals and not listening to the patient voice. We describe changes in attitudes to patient safety from potential future health care leaders who participated in an interactive programme focusing on these attributes.

Changing medical student attitudes to patient safety: a multicentre study.

Background: Although patient safety is becoming widely taught in medical schools, its effect has been less rigorously evaluated. We describe a multicentre study to evaluate student changes in patient safety attitudes using a standardised instrument, the Attitudes to Patient Safety Questionnaire3 (APSQ3).

Methods: A patient safety training package designed for medical students was delivered in the first year and second year in four Australian medical schools.

A pilot programme of clinical practice improvement for future consultant doctors.

Background: To provide junior doctors with tools to improve patient care in their workplace, a partnership was developed between the Clinical Excellence Commission (CEC) and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) to help trainee consultants carry out clinical practice improvement (CPI) projects during clinical work.

Methods: Based on a patient-care problem they wished to resolve, trainee consultants attended a 2-day face-to-face workshop to learn quality-improvement methods, describe their proposals and refine them using CPI methodology. They were provided with continuing supervision, participated in a mid-point review and were responsible for driving their projects.

Role modelling in medical education: the importance of teaching skills.

Objectives: By observation of role models, and participation in activities, students develop their attitudes, values and professional competencies. Literature suggests that clinical skills and knowledge, personality, and teaching skills are three main areas that students consider central to the identification of positive role models. The aim of this study was to explore junior medical students' opinions of the ideal attributes of a good role model in clinical tutors.

Some reflections from the past and some ideas for the future: The 2014 Kempe Oration.

Although the physical features of child abuse had been described before 1962, it was Henry Kempe et al.'s article "The Battered Child Syndrome" that is regarded as the beginning of widespread awareness and acceptance of this previously hidden problem. It was another 15 years before child sex abuse started to receive similar widespread recognition.

Role modelling of clinical tutors: a focus group study among medical students.

Background: Role modelling by clinicians assists in development of medical students' professional competencies, values and attitudes. Three core characteristics of a positive role model include 1) clinical attributes, 2) teaching skills, and 3) personal qualities. This study was designed to explore medical students' perceptions of their bedside clinical tutors as role models during the first year of a medical program.

First year clinical tutorials: students' learning experience.

Background: Bedside teaching lies at the heart of medical education. The learning environment afforded to students during clinical tutorials contributes substantially to their knowledge, thinking, and learning. Situated cognition theory posits that the depth and breadth of the students' learning experience is dependent upon the attitude of the clinical teacher, the structure of the tutorial, and the understanding of tutorial and learning objectives.

The cost of teaching an intern in New South Wales.

Objective: To determine the cost of formal and informal teaching specifically provided for interns and to determine how much of an intern's time is spent in these activities.

Design, Setting And Participants: Costs of formal teaching for 2012 were obtained from the New South Wales Health Education and Training Institute (HETI) and costs of informal teaching by a survey of all interns in a random sample of prevocational networks.

Main Outcome Measures: The cost of formal intern education provided by HETI; the number of hours of formal teaching provided to interns in hospital; intern estimates of the amount of non-timetabled teaching received in a typical week.

A multi-tiered approach to safety education.

Background: The World Health Organization has recognised that patient safety education should begin at the undergraduate level. This should not just be for medical students, but for all students in the health professions. Although all students in the health professions should receive a basic grounding in patient safety, there is also a need to develop future leaders in this field.

The hidden cost of medical student education: an exploratory study.

Objective: To examine the hidden cost of medical education at the Sydney Medical School, for which the University of Sydney does not pay.

Methods: All face-to-face teaching provided for students in the Sydney University Postgraduate Medical Program was listed under two headings: teaching by university employed staff; and teaching by other health providers not paid by the university. All teaching hours in 2010 were extracted from detailed timetables and categorised under these headings.

Child sexual abuse in the Anglican Church of Australia.

This article reports on a retrospective study of cases of child sexual abuse complaints made against clergy, other employed pastoral staff, and volunteers in the Anglican Church of Australia between 1990 and 2008. There were 191 allegations of sexual abuse made by 180 complainants against 135 individuals. Twenty-seven of those 135 had more than one complaint made against them.

The new clinical leader.

The complexity and cost of health care, along with a greater need for accountability calls for a new style of clinical leadership. The new clinical leader will lead reform by putting the needs of the patient first and foremost, looking at current and planned services from the patient's point of view as well as the clinician's. Excellent clinical skills will remain essential but will be supplemented by a focus on team work and mentoring, patient safety, clear communication and reduction in waste and inefficiency, leading to better financial outcomes.

Physical punishment of children: can we continue to accept the status quo?

All children require discipline, although physical punishment is just one form of discipline. Parental use of physical punishment is inter-generational. There is now evidence that physical punishment of children is not only less effective than other forms of discipline but can also lead to aggressive behaviour in childhood and adult life.