Associate Professor Christine Jorm is an academic with doctorates in neuropharmacology and sociology. She worked as an anaesthetist for more than 15 years before her interest in quality assurance led to full-time cross-disciplinary work in patient safety and quality including for the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare.
Her book ‘Reconstructing Medical Practice – Engagement, Professionalism and Critical Relationships in Health Care’ suggested that doctors’ delicate self-esteem, collegiate relationships and cherished connections with patients reduce their ability to admit to error or engage with the system. It argues that regulation is a clumsy and limited approach to ensuring good care but detailed attention to organisational relationships can rebuild safe and satisfying practice.
Christine has broad interests, her publication areas include: medical culture, organisational culture, clinician engagement, safety and quality, clinical handover, root cause analysis, open disclosure, narrative in education, health information literacy, use of smart phones in healthcare, peer assessment, professionalism, rules and regulation, simulation, evaluation of educational programs, measurement of health care quality and use of routine data to improve care, infection control practice (video-reflexive ethnography) and interprofessional education and practice.