One step to safer surgeries may be potluck lunches.

Arranging social occasions where members of the surgical team can get to know one another as individuals is part of the patient safety approach that Andrew S. Klein, MD, is pursuing as chair of surgery and transplant medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

“In the operating room, we’re all camouflaged in our gowns and masks and gloves,” Dr. Klein said. “If I ask for one instrument and I get the wrong one, my options could be to swear and yell or throw that instrument on the floor. But if I know the person, if I know something about them, there is a well of good will, and you don’t react that way.”

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