Near-peers improve patient safety training in the preclinical curriculum

ABSTRACTBackground: Accrediting bodies require medical schools to teach patient safety and residents to develop teaching skills in patient safety. We created a patient safety course in the preclinical curriculum and used continuous quality improvement to make changes over time.Objective: To assess the impact of resident teaching on student perceptions of a Patient Safety course.Design: Using the Institute for Healthcare Improvement patient safety curriculum as a frame, the course included the seven IHI modules, large group lectures and small group facilitated discussions. Applying a social action methodology, we evaluated the course for four years (Y1–Y4).Results: In Y1, Y2, Y3 and Y4, we distributed a course evaluation to each student (n = 184, 189, 191, and 184, respectively) and the response rate was 96, 97, 95 and 100%, respectively. Overall course quality, clarity of course goals and value of small group discussions increased in Y2 after the introduction of residents as small group facilitators. The ...