Peer-Led Surgical Safety Learning Among Medical Students Using a Novel Story-Based Approach

Introduction Even though medical students are important for the future of the overall healthcare system, they are often overlooked as valuable participants in safeguarding patient safety. Moreover, surgical safety is a critical topic that deserves to be addressed thoroughly during medical education, as part of the broader topic of patient safety. To maximize students’ engagement and to enhance their interest in patient safety and healthcare quality, it is imperative to explore and innovate stirring and interactive methods of learning. Through this paper, we present a unique narrative novel story-based, peer-led surgical safety teaching session organized by medical student representatives of Middle East's first student-led patient safety initiative and attended by medical students from various academic years. Methods A 1-hour case-based interactive learning session on surgical safety was developed, based on the World Health Organization (WHO) patient safety curriculum for medical schools. The session was peer-led at Alfaisal University College of Medicine, Riyadh and participation was voluntary. Learning objectives included surgical safety checklist, human factors, complexity of healthcare, students’ critical role in safety and open disclosure. The session included a verbal “story-telling” segment, followed by a didactic segment where learning objectives were covered. Attendees were continuously engaged throughout the session with the help of verbal inquiries. Pre-test and post-test questionnaires were distributed to assess participants' knowledge, awareness and perceptions regarding surgical safety and other objectives covered in the session. Results A total of 75 students participated in the session, consisting of 57.3% females and 42.7% males. Responses to the pre-test and post-test were analyzed and compared. Most students who attended the session reported that it was of value to them - with more than 90% of students considering the session either valuable or highly valuable. After the session, more students (10.67%, p = 0.10) were correctly able to identify that the initial reaction in healthcare is often individual blame (Q.1). Additionally, more students (30.63%, p < 0.001) were able to correctly identify the implementation of the WHO surgical safety checklist as the major factor that has contributed to the reduction of errors in healthcare (Q.2). Students’ responses also indicated that after attending the session a higher number (16%, p = 0.01) correctly identified that most errors linked to surgery were potentially preventable (Q.3). Conclusion Students are inherently willing to learn and engage in interactive learning. It was encouraging to see medical students show interest in this important patient safety topic, which also encourages similar future peer-learning initiatives. As reported, narrative story-based peer-assisted learning is an effective way to engage medical students in the cause of patient safety and should be utilized to further their knowledge and awareness regarding critical healthcare safety areas such as surgical safety, medication safety and infection control and instill a sense of responsibility in these future physicians.