Niall Downey on Mistakes

What happens when a surgeon decides to become an airline pilot? You get some amazing insights into mistakes, how they happen and what we can do to mitigate them.

That surgeon and now pilot is my guest Niall Downey. He’s also the author of a book called ‘Oops! Why Things Go Wrong’: Understanding and Controlling Error’

He began his career as a doctor, where he becaeme a cardiothoracic surgeon. After twelve years of medical training, Niall decided to change course and retrained as an airline pilot with Aer Lingues, initially combining aviation with medicine by working as an Accident and emergency doctor before focusing full-time on aviation.

If there’s one industry that knows how to manage risk, it’s airlines. While there might be issues with things like luggage and IT failure, when it comes to safety in the skies, the airline industry has a very good track record, particularly when we consider the number of planes in the sky at any one time. Niall has made it his mission to bring the methods aliens use to mitigate risk into the medical world.

In our discussion, we explore:

• Niall’s career and what led him into medicine and then the airline industry:
• The similarities and differences of risks and risk management in the two sectors;
• How airlines and the medical profession react to mistakes;
• The importance of a just culture and psychological safety supported by regulators in getting people to speak up;
• How simplifying reporting processes can make it more likely people will report things;
• The ‘Swiss Cheese’ model for risk management;
• The realities of being a pilot and the importance of having two in the cockpit;
• Niall’s thoughts on what medicine and healthcare can learn from the airline industry;
• How checklists can reduce errors