Morbidity and Mortality Conferences on Trauma

M&M conferences will occur every Tuesday morning, immediately following morning report.

If your patient experiences an untoward event, please be prepared to present on the next Tuesday.  Below are some helpful guidelines for preparing and presenting at M&M:


1. You do not have to wait for the actual M&M conference to prepare or send information about a complication. As soon as it occurs, you should write it up and send it is a Word attachment to Dr. Joseph at kjtrauma@yahoo.com.

2.  Preparing for M&M

• The primary purpose of the M&M conference is to examine the care we provide to patients, critique it objectively, and identify things we do well along with areas in which we might improve. It is NOT to assign blame, and residents are not evaluated based on what or how many complications occur in their patients
• To prepare for M&M, review the chart if possible. Try to identify elements that might have contributed to the complication. For example:
• - if a patient came in to the Unit and died of shock while in Resusc., did we identify the source of shock and treat it in a timely fashion? If the patient required an operation, how long was the patient in Resusc. before (s)he left for the OR? How long was the operative time? How long was the patient in the field or at the transferring hospital before arriving to the Unit?
• - if a patient had an infection or wound complication, was this diagnosed in a timely fashion? Could it have been recognized earlier? Is it related to an error or break in technique?
• - if the patient had a complication related to a procedure, review the conduct of the procedure
• -are there any lab or X-ray data that could have alerted us to a problem?
• - is there a systems issue that contributed to the complication (lack of equipment or support services)?
• -was there a problem with communication?
• - is there literature on the subject that can assist us in improving our care?

3.   Completing the M&M write-up (as a Word document- do not send in the body of  the e-mail you send to Dr. Joseph)   In addition to the narrative elements listed above, the M&M write up should contain some basic demographic information:

-          patient’s name and/or unit number

-          date of admission

-          date of complication or death

-          narrative should include a timeline that is easy to follow (either dates or listings such as POD2, HD2, etc.—dates are more reliable)

-          admitting attending and operating attending (if applicable)

-          literature summary and/or references if applicable

4.  Presenting at M&M

-Bring a copy of your write up to the M&M conference

-Don’t get flustered if you are frequently interrupted; the whole team is encouraged to contribute information if it is pertinent

- At the end of your presentation, you will be asked if you think the complication was preventable, possibly preventable, or non-preventable and why. Be honest, you’re not being graded!