Situational awareness in driving, and lessons for surgeons

Abstract

It is often said that medicine could learn a lot from aviation. Human and system errors affect all complex organisations including healthcare, and there is increasing awareness of the role of non-technical skills in the safe practice of surgery. Comparisons are often drawn between the way in which the aviation industry learns from errors and the paucity of learning from errors in situational judgement in medical practice. Although many of us travel on planes, very few of us fly them, but most surgeons drive regularly. We review a series of motoring incidents that demonstrate poor situational awareness and judgement, and discuss the incidents, predisposing causes, and their relevance to medical practice. These errors are transferrable to medical practice, and perhaps we can learn from them.

Keywords: aviation; driving; situational judgement.