Quality Scholars - Yasmin Carter, PhD

My Quality Scholars project was on sharps injuries in the anatomy lab. The problem is UMass Chan medical students in the anatomy lab are significantly more likely to be injured by sharps than residents in a similar environment in the UMHC system. ~7.5% of UMass Chan medical students experience a (reportable) sharps injury (requiring treatment) in the anatomy lab compared to ~1.8% of residents who experience a scalpel injury in the UMHC medical centers during training, leading to physical injury and recovery time, lost study time, increased student health costs, and inappropriate sharps handling habits that carry into the clinical environment.

I did a root cause analysis and found four major themes to the reasons for injury. Learner stress and emotions, communication between the dissecting team, scalpel handling habits and the workspace.

I devised counter measures that have been put in place in the lab or will be in this academic session and we have already seen a reduction in sharps injuries and are on track to meet our goal of reducing the incidence of reported sharps injuries in the anatomy labs to medical students to 0 in the academic year 2024/25.

Quality Scholars Program

The Quality Scholars Program is a professional development opportunity for any UMass Memorial Health caregiver interested in quality improvement and gaining the skills and knowledge to accomplish projects in their area. During the nine month program participants work with groups, mentors and Lean coaches to develop skills for quality improvements. At the completion of the course the participants present their projects at a graduation ceremony. This year there were three graduates from Radiology. - Betty Watari, Yasmin Carter, PhD and Kalyn Barger.