2016 Fram Lecture: _A Matter of Life and Death: When thinking is critical_

We all admire and respect heroic actions. The firefighter that rescues the child from the burning house. The secret service agent that takes a bullet to save the president_s life. The doctor that brings someone back from the brink of death. In all of those cases, the hero reacts promptly, decisively;Unfortunately, our admiration for heroic actions misses the global impact of subtler actions beyond that celebrated instant. It also can gloss over the preparation and critical thought that is part of successful implementation. Modern life requires all of us to exercise these skills in varying ways. Medicine is an example of the need for our best applied critical thinking in a truly challenging and complex context.A 1999 Institute of Medicine report (_To err is human: Building a safer health system_) estimated that medical errors are responsible for upward of 100 thousand deaths a year in the US, making it the third leading cause of mortality. Sadly, many of those errors are preventable and in many cases we know what needs to be done to avoid them altogether or to a large extent. The challenge is not finding a technical solution but, like in many other contexts, implementing that solution. Lecture is FREE and open to the public.Faculty, Staff and Students are encouraged to attend!Interpreting services provided.