Field notes
Longer reads on what cockpits, control rooms and the emergency department can teach a patient.
Each note takes one idea from safety science and follows it into an exam room, a kitchen or a hospital corridor. Every figure links to its source. Each note ends with the step of the SCOTT Protocol it belongs to and a tool from the field kit you can use the same day.
- Step 1, self-awareness A clean bill of health is a snapshot 9 min Why a normal checkup can be the most reassuring and least informative hour of your year. Masked high blood pressure, the prediabetes nobody mentions, and what to ask for instead of reassurance.
- Step 2, consistent monitoring The swollen ankle you stopped noticing 9 min A warning sign that doesn’t hurt you the first time is easy to stop seeing. The space shuttle program learned that at a terrible price. The Challenger launch decision, the normalization of deviance, and how to keep a symptom from becoming furniture.
- Step 3, oversight “Is he not clear, then?” 8 min The question asked thirteen seconds before the worst accident in aviation history, and what it teaches about speaking up in an exam room. Tenerife, United 173, the birth of crew resource management, and four moves for saying a worry out loud.
- Step 4, tenacity Going home is a handoff 8 min In one study, nearly 1 in 5 patients sent home from the hospital had an adverse event within weeks. Here is how to run the handoff like a shift change. What goes wrong in the weeks after discharge, why medication lists drift, and the family member as a second set of eyes.
Where to go next
The notes lean on two other parts of the site. The SCOTT Protocol lays out all five steps and the high reliability principle behind each one, and the field kit holds the checklists, the one-page health brief and the screening timeline the notes point to.
Run your health like it matters, with a physician on your side.
Dr. Scott works with individuals, families and leadership teams through The Scott Health Advisory: a structured review of where your health could fail, and a plan to keep it from happening.
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