Let's Value Health Instead of Wealth

"When you have your health, you have everything."

–Augusten Burroughs

How does society measure the success of the US medical profession? Number of physicians, their wealth, power, and prestige? Their homes, automobiles, and boats? Their dedication to work, family, and community? The degree of respect by their neighbors?

My view is that the medical profession, and that of other healthcare professions, should be judged by the quality, length, and happiness of the lives of the people they serve.

Way back in my career in academic medicine, we used to describe a three-legged stool for success: service, teaching, and research. As an entity, we were expected to succeed in all three.

As individuals, we were expected to make serious efforts in all three. Those super-achievers among us who did, were promoted to what became the fourth leg: administration, often then succumbing to the Peter Principle, getting stuck at their highest level of incompetence.

Once American medicine became predominantly "money-driven medicine" after the triumph of capitalism and the MBAs, many of those who excelled in medicine were rewarded (often richly) by an appointment or promotion to senior administrators/managers. This was all about alignment.

Proper successful management requires a different three-legged stool: authority, responsibility, and accountability.