Annals of Emergency Medicine, September 2011

In an era focused on quality measures, it has become common to compare medicine with aviation. The air industry’s practices, from checklists during procedures to training exercises for entire teams, seem to offer lessons for medical institutions still struggling with errors and health care–associated infections.

Some patient advocates are asking whether medicine—and especially emergency medicine, a specialty that, like flying, runs on adrenaline and relies on quick decisionmaking—should adopt another aviation practice: a mandatory retirement age. More…