I started my new job yesterday, so I’ve spent yesterday and today in the new employee orientation (also known as “on-boarding”). This involves leaders from just about every administrative department coming to talk about what they do.

The patient safety person showed us a video that I thought was interesting. When you watch it, count the number of passes the white team makes. You should probably do that before reading any more of this entry.

So, when I watched it, I counted seventeen. The only problem is that I missed the giant gorilla that dances through the middle of the screen. People, apparently, only look for what they want to see. This becomes a problem when it comes to patient safety — if you’re looking for a certain drug to give to a patient, you might grab one that looks similar and actually read the “correct” drug’s name. This kind of mistake plays a part in many of the 98,000 deaths from medical errors every year.

Additionally, that exercise was used in a cyclist awareness campaign in the UK. Here’s one of the other ads that, perhaps, more dramatically demonstrates this effect (as if a dancing gorilla wasn’t dramatic enough):