George Vetrovec

Apr 15, 2024 | opmed.doximity.com | Nishant Pandya |Jennifer Boyle |George Vetrovec

“Can’t we heal him faster?”I was sitting across from a teenage soccer player and his mother. His ankle was not fractured. It was swollen after an opponent stepped on him. As I discussed conservative management centered around rest, the sullen 15-year-old nodded attentively. His mother shook her head, barely hiding her frustration. “He just recovered from a knee sprain and a pulled hamstring. He has a soccer tournament this weekend.

Apr 15, 2024 | opmed.doximity.com | Jennifer Boyle |Nishant Pandya |George Vetrovec

Disclosure: Researching and writing about this topic has served as a kind of therapy for me. I found myself in need of such therapy because recently I realized that I was tip-toeing closer and closer toward a bad place. This bad place is the mental state where you start to bristle at the thought of checklists and huddles and time-outs and debriefs — and here’s a secret, they’re all checklists by different names. I even found myself wondering if safety culture could ever make things less safe.