Ensuring Trust, Respect, and Excellence: The Bureaucratization of Medical Mistake Experiences Through Structuring Disclosure and Apology

• In Event: Health Messages and Outcomes: Perception, Behavior, and Prevention

Abstract

Hospitals across the country are attempting to embrace a new medical narrative that privileges a medical culture of patient safety. Within this narrative shift is an imperative for physicians to disclose and apologize to patients and their families when a medical error occurs. Relying on Giddens’ structuration theory, I explore one hospital’s disclosure and apology program, examining how the program, through structuring disclosure and apology of medical mistakes, bureaucratizated medical mistake experiences.

Author

• Heather Carmack, Missouri State University