Parulekar SV
A checklist is an old concept in management. Checklists are used in all wakes of life. The preflight checklists in aviation industry, checklists for software engineering, operations procedures in industry, open source litigation, ornithologiy, and tracking of sports cards collections are but a few examples of the same. WHO used this concept to develop a checklist for operative procedures, and that is used extensively the world over. The idea behind the use of a checklist is to see that no step of an important procedure is missed, so that there will be no error in the performance of the procedure. Optimum performance of any procedure eliminates all errors which are due to oversight or negligence. Every good clinician uses a mental checklist for every procedure he performs, whether it is a diagnostic procedure or therapeutic one, whether it is a medical procedure or a surgical one. That is sure way of having zero error. We have been using checklists in this manner all our lives, even when we did not know they were called checklists in the past. Unfortunately every person may not do it, or the checklists of different persons may be different. So we wanted to have our checklists in the practice of Obstetrics and Gynecology in our department. One resident doctor suggested that the residents should take up this project under guidance of the faculty. We thought it was a wonderful idea, because a lot of work is done by the resident doctors in tertiary level teaching hospitals, and their involvement in this project would be a great educational experience for them. The resident doctors divided the topics amongst themselves, worked on them, presented their work in joint meetings of all residents and all faculty, corrections were made based on suggestions made and evidence presented by many people, and after a year and half of intensive efforts, we have the checklists ready. It is not possible to list the names of more than sixty resident doctors and thirty three staff members as contributors in this issue of the journal, and hence there are no names of contributors on the contents page. But the credit goes to all of them. Arrangement and formatting of such text coming from so many people was a taxing job. But now it is done and the pain forgotten. I hope this checklist will help all healthcare personnel, who can modify the lists to suit their workplaces, and use them usefully.
A checklist is an old concept in management. Checklists are used in all wakes of life. The preflight checklists in aviation industry, checklists for software engineering, operations procedures in industry, open source litigation, ornithologiy, and tracking of sports cards collections are but a few examples of the same. WHO used this concept to develop a checklist for operative procedures, and that is used extensively the world over. The idea behind the use of a checklist is to see that no step of an important procedure is missed, so that there will be no error in the performance of the procedure. Optimum performance of any procedure eliminates all errors which are due to oversight or negligence. Every good clinician uses a mental checklist for every procedure he performs, whether it is a diagnostic procedure or therapeutic one, whether it is a medical procedure or a surgical one. That is sure way of having zero error. We have been using checklists in this manner all our lives, even when we did not know they were called checklists in the past. Unfortunately every person may not do it, or the checklists of different persons may be different. So we wanted to have our checklists in the practice of Obstetrics and Gynecology in our department. One resident doctor suggested that the residents should take up this project under guidance of the faculty. We thought it was a wonderful idea, because a lot of work is done by the resident doctors in tertiary level teaching hospitals, and their involvement in this project would be a great educational experience for them. The resident doctors divided the topics amongst themselves, worked on them, presented their work in joint meetings of all residents and all faculty, corrections were made based on suggestions made and evidence presented by many people, and after a year and half of intensive efforts, we have the checklists ready. It is not possible to list the names of more than sixty resident doctors and thirty three staff members as contributors in this issue of the journal, and hence there are no names of contributors on the contents page. But the credit goes to all of them. Arrangement and formatting of such text coming from so many people was a taxing job. But now it is done and the pain forgotten. I hope this checklist will help all healthcare personnel, who can modify the lists to suit their workplaces, and use them usefully.