Has Sensemaking Collapsed When It Comes To U.S. Healthcare?

By MIKE MAGEE This past week my wife and I were at a family event to celebrate my brother-in-law’s 70th birthday. Our extended family has more than a few doctors. A physician nephew who had read CODE BLUE and had a strong interest in health policy asked if I felt I (and others) were too hard on doctors. My response was yes, but that it was intentional and came with the territory. Combining scientific, sometimes life and death expertise, with high-touch compassion, understanding and partnership has always been a “big ask” but that was what we and others had signed up for as “health professionals.” But can a health professional be “professional” in a fundamentally misaligned health system? And, if not, does a health professional have a responsibility to engage in an effort to reform and transform the system to behave professionally? Professionals are generally members of a vocation with special training, highly educated, enjoy special trust and work autonomy, abide by strict moral and ethical obligations, and in return are generally self-regulating. Their academic training is expected to reliably provide those they serve with special skills, judgement, and services. When they deliver, society responds with confidence and trust and durable long-term relationships. My nephew and many of his contemporaries have come to believe that this is neigh impossible under the current heavily corporatized, profit driven, inequitable, under-insured, and widely inacce...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Health Policy Deming Don Berwick ESCAPE FIRE Karl E. Weick Mike Magee Physicians Sensemaking Source Type: blogs