Surgical Safety
Why the surgical safety checklist still matters
The two-minute pause before incision is one of the most studied interventions in medicine. It is also one of the easiest to perform badly.
Dr. Priyamvada Goel5 min read
The WHO surgical safety checklist is not paperwork. Done well, it is a structured conversation that catches the errors no individual would have caught alone.
The failure mode is familiar: the checklist becomes a ritual that nobody pays attention to. When that happens, we have lost the intervention even though we are still performing the motions.
Good checklist practice is led from the front of the room, names every person present, and treats every item as if it could be the one that saves a patient today.