Teaching and learning in morbidity and mortality rounds: an ethnographic study

OBJECTIVES In keeping with the current emphasis on quality improvement and patient safety, a Canadian division of general internal medicine began holding weekly morbidity and mortality rounds (M most did not value this role-modelled learning as much as they valued the acquisition of content knowledge. CONCLUSIONS These M&MRs were effective forums for addressing patient safety and quality improvement competencies. They carried none of the negative functions attributed to such rounds in the sociology literature, focusing neither on absolving responsibility nor on learning socially acceptable ways to discuss death in public. However, this study revealed a marked disjunction between the teaching valued by staff doctors and the learning valued by their trainees.