Presenter

Dr. Connor Lusk, Ph.D., is an assistant professor and embedded human factors engineer in the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Medicine at The Medical University of South Carolina. Connor is trained in viewing and studying clinical systems from the "systems" perspective which offers a more comprehensive view of how surgical performance is achieved through appropriate and timely interactions between people (surgeons, perfusionists, anesthesiologists, nurses, technologists, administrators), tools, tasks, and technologies. Traditional approaches to safety in the operating room that focus on "who did what wrong" are limited and do not tell the whole story surrounding patient safety. Dr. Lusk uniquely applies industrial, systems, and human factors engineering into the everyday practice of evidence-based medicine in clinical systems to support decision-making in uncertain and complex healthcare environments through a deep understanding of work systems and how systemic factors either prevent or facilitate medical errors. During her postdoctoral training, Connor became actively involved in research to assess and improve safety in cardiac surgery, cardiovascular perfusion, anesthesia medication delivery, robotic-assisted surgery, and sterile instrument reprocessing. Connor completed a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical human factors engineering at MUSC, both a Ph.D. and Master's at Auburn University in Industrial and Systems Engineering as a National Institute of Safety and Health (NIOSH) graduate fellow, and a B.S. in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering from The University of Alabama.