Human error remains 1 of the most significant factors contributing to treatment errors in radiation oncology, and the fear of punishment, retaliation, liability, and embarrassment often impedes the success of any reporting process implemented. Adams et al reported that nearly a quarter of U.S. radiation therapists feared reporting an error to their supervisor because of concerns of retaliation, including job loss. For a reporting process to work, radiation therapists need to feel that their administration supports them and that they are in a safe working environment that relies on a just culture to determine how to respond to errors. Just culture, a concept related to systems thinking, emphasizes that mistakes are, in general, a product of faulty organizational cultures rather than solely brought about by the person or persons directly involved. In a just culture, the question asked after an incident is, "What went wrong?" rather than "Who caused the problem?" A just culture is the opposite of a blame culture.
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