Situational awareness and theatre practitioner education

Following his wife’s death during anaesthesia, the husband of the late
Elaine Bromiley began an initiative, based on aspects of his training as a
pilot, that was a catalyst for the inception of the World Health Organization
checklist for surgery and team briefings in theatre. This paper describes
the background to this and also suggests how the crew resource
management aspect of his training highlights situational awareness. This
is a concept that can be used to augment the development of operating
department practitioners and theatre practitioners by getting them to
think and transfer the perception of the environment across contexts from
aircraft to operating theatre.