It's interesting how the non-medical folks and the medical folks differentially view eachother. This is great, actually. I like Nick's analysis of the individual form novice to master. In the world of congnitive psychology, novices are found to process in a linear fashion. They tend to go from one step to the next and often have difficulty 'seeing the forest for the trees.' Masters tend to process information through 'chunking.' That is, the simultaneous input and processing of data.
In the airline industry, you have responded to this by limiting the activities and responsibilities of the novice. Medicine tends to do this but with much less vigor and oversight.
It is also correct that in medicine virtually all error is punished and that error recognition is not 'rewarded.' I think that part of this is due to the medical profession itself which over the past 40 years or so has moved from a position of 'we will do the best that we can' to 'we can fix anything.' Given that premise, when outcomes are not ideal, then the patient and the system go hunting for someone to blame.
Over the past couple of days here, there have been a series of news stories related to 'wrong side' surgeries. Folks are running around trying to figure out how to prevent these. It seems to me that this situation is ripe for 'pre-flight' checklists conducted by more than one person and cross-checked repeatidly.
I think that you folks have gone a long way toward distinguishing system and human errors and that the medical system needs to take a look at this.
As we develop our efforts here, I will be pleased to share our findings, literature and anything with anyone who might be interested. Thanks for the continued converstation.
Bill