A Mock Morbidity and Mortality Conference: Does It Change Providers’ Behavior? Does It Change Providers’ Behavior?

Morbidity and Mortality Conferences (MMCs) have been used in medical training for over 100 years [1]. In-depth discussions of practice and outcomes create an opportunity to acknowledge errors and suggest improvements [2, 3]. With graduate medical education’s growing focus on patient safety, MMCs represent a means of creating a culture of safety by identifying system-based problems. Proponents of system-based MMCs recognize that idiosyncratic methods for identifying, discussing, and following cases have hampered their impact [4, 5]. Although structured MMCs lead to increased numbers of quality improvement projects and awareness of systems issues, documenting a consistent positive effect on patient care and outcomes remains elusive [6,7,8]. Specific medical errors typically occur at a low frequency, and statistically significant decreases in rare events may be difficult to demonstrate [9]. Some MMCs do not impact the rates of medical errors because they do not focus on medical errors [5, 7]. These cases are chosen for other reasons, e.g., an interesting or rare case. While these may be educational, they exacerbate the challenge of propagating clinically relevant lessons from MMCs [10].