Improving departmental psychological safety through a medical school-wide initiative

Psychological safety is a team-based phenomenon whereby group members are empowered to ask questions, take appropriate risks, admit mistakes, propose novel ideas, and candidly voice concerns. Growing research supports the benefits of psychological safety in healthcare and education for patient safety, learning, and innovation. However, there is a paucity of research on how to create psychological safety, especially within academic medicine. To meet this need, the present study describes and evaluates a multi-year, medical school-wide psychological safety initiative.