I believe that almost every single healthcare provider has gone into medicine because they deeply want to help people. Whether they want to help as a nurse or a surgeon or an administrator- the desire the care and contribute is the same.
It's pretty easy to forget, though. As we've shared in the past, more than 50% of healthcare providers show signs of burnout. And, to be honest, I'm almost surprised the stats are that low, when I hear the experience and cynicism of so many of my colleagues.
The wear and drain and stress of daily work in medicine is enough to make anyone forget the original impetus of the work. It's easy enough to think that the goal is some incremental improvement. A little bigger productivity bonus. A slightly shorter wait time in the waiting room. A bit higher patient satisfaction numbers.
But then something comes along and reminds us that incremental improvements are not the only option that exists.
Just last week, scientists found the molecular process in the brain that helps trigger schizophrenia. This isn't a small shift in the disease -- it changes everything. Steven Hyman, director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute at MIT, called it "the most significant mechanistic study about schizophrenia ever." He said, "I’m a crusty, old, curmudgeonly skeptic. But I’m almost giddy about these findings."
And that's exactly what healthcare collaboration and telemedicine can be -- something that healthcare providers get giddy over. These are not small process improvements -- they're fundamental shifts in the way medicine can happen. It's not a little bit better treatment for a patient -- it's a radically different outcome. It's not a tiny bit more satisfaction or a minute of saved time for a doctor -- it's a return to the reason you went to medical school.
Our colleagues in telemedicine and who are collaborating are creating a new era of medicine. An era in which the old puzzles and conundrums may indeed become obsolete as radical changes make something new possible. And we believe that this finding on schizophrenia, telemedicine platforms, and courageous providers are all part of that process.
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