“My Patient”— More Than Ever

In teaching hospitals, “off-hour” errors by young doctors are sometimes considered a necessary price of training future physicians. This should never be the case. In 2009, an act of split-second decision making, skill, courage and leadership by an airline pilot saved many lives and captured the attention of the world, but also demonstrated that patient care need never take a back seat to medical education. The following is adapted from my March 2009 Emergency Medicine editorial.