Photo: Adrienne Cullen, source ANP

Fifth Adrienne Cullen lecture 

Practical information
The Adrienne Cullen lecture took place on Friday, March 10, 2023, from noon to 1 p.m.  

• You can watch the Dutch lecture with Dutch subtitles via this link.  
• You can watch the lecture with an English speech interpreter via this link. 

The theme of the lecture 

Openness when something goes wrong in healthcare: the patient and the young doctor 

The theme of the fifth Adrienne Cullen lecture is "The Patient and the Young Doctor”. What is the role of a young doctor when something goes wrong in healthcare and what does he or she need to deal with it properly? Patients in a university medical center, in addition to interacting with nurses, primarily interact with doctors in training to become specialists (aios). These young doctors are in training and are supervised in this by a medical specialist (supervisor). The young doctor is the link between the patient/close relatives and the medical specialist.  

Program 

Lecture by Shirin Bemelmans - Lalezari, cardiothoracic surgeon at the UMC Utrecht

Title: The patient and the young doctor
In her lecture, Shirin focuses on the theme of vulnerability. How vulnerable you are as a patient, as a young doctor and as a supervisor. As a human being. What does a (possible) mistake do to you as a human being, what feelings can this evoke and how can you deal with them. She also mentions the importance of learning to reflect in the training situation and as a supervisor to pay attention not only to the substantive aspect of the event, but also to the emotion of the doctor involved. This is also important to allow the role of the young doctor to be fulfilled as well as possible and thus to keep the relationship with the patient/close relatives as pure as possible.

Film  
The family of a patient talks about the situation with their son in which information was lost due to many transfers and different caregivers with negative consequences for the quality of care.  

Panel discussion
Astrid Janssens, professor of patient and public participation
Shirin Bemelmans – Lalezari, cardiothoracic surgeon
Fia Cialdella, physician-researcher
Filip de Vos, oncologist and educator  

The conversation is about how a young doctor deals with his role and his part in events that harm a patient. How do you make sure the patient has confidence (again) in what you do. What does the young doctor need to discuss mistakes or intense situations in a safe environment. How can the young doctor add value to communication with the patient and close relatives. How to create a safe learning environment in which the young doctor learns to reflect on his own actions.

Would you like to receive an invitation to these lectures? Then please send an email to webinar@umcutrecht.nl.

Third Adrienne Cullen lecture

The online meeting took place on Friday April 16 2021. Click here to watch (the lecture is in Dutch). During this meeting we discussed the importance of patient and peer support after an incident, shared personal experiences and discussed what we have learned to improve in openness after an incident. A patient and a doctor shared their experiences with an incident in a film.

Mrs. Cordula Wagner from NIVEL, an independent research institute, shared the results from the project “When things go wrong, about the consequences of calamities for patients and relatives and consequences of disclosure”.

First Adrienne Cullen lecture
The first Adrienne Cullen lecture took place at UMC Utrecht on Friday April 13, 2018. This first lecture was about Adrienne Cullen herself who was a victim of a medical mistake. In 2011, the results of a tissue biopsy that showed that she had cervical cancer did not reach her treating physician at UMC Utrecht. Two years later, the mistake came to light, but by then the cancer had already metastasized, with fatal consequences for the patient. Adrienne Cullen passed away in December 2018.

Read here the investigation into the medical mistake and the reflection on the investigation by the Executive Board of UMC Utrecht. Both documents are in Dutch.

In order to guarantee the privacy of Mrs. Cullen and the healthcare professionals involved, her personal medical data and information that can be traced back to individuals have been made illegible.