Some good may come out of Harvard after all

Peter of Mt. Lebanon alerted me to this commencement address (Cowboys and Pit Crews) to Harvard Medical by Atul Gawande. Since Myk is already in love with the New Yorker, I'm probably posting this for no one left to read it. Nevertheless I found it interesting and in tune with our recent hospital experience with mom. In fact, my impression was that hospitals seem to recognize that they need to be more like pit crews, but that they fail miserably at it.

A different approach was told to me by another Peter, my brother, who contrasted the current hospital style with David Hall's clinic where one doctor is responsible for all the patient's care, wellness, support, and (fortunately or unfortunately) spiritual assistance. I know little about the clinic so I don't know how specialists are incorporated, but the singular personal care approach sounds interesting. It's not that mom was not getting very personal, dedicated care, it was that it resembled a tag team match or a relay race more than a pit crew, which provided ample opportunity for missed tags and dropped batons.