Speaking up: does anaesthetist gender influence teamwork and collaboration?

Speaking up can be defined as explicitly communicating observations or concerns, requesting clarification or explanation, or explicitly challenging a colleague's decision or action.¹ Speaking up provides an opportunity to intervene before patient harm occurs, or to mitigate actual harm, and is a key element in effective teamwork and collaboration.² The importance of speaking up is most evident in its absence, where colleagues remain silent or make ineffectual attempts at speaking up, and erroneous actions proceed to cause patient harm. There are many prominent examples where failing to speak up in an effective manner has contributed to accidents and catastrophes in aviation,³ space exploration⁴ and in healthcare.⁵

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