WE’RE SPECIALIST CRAZY
Posted by anthonynorth on January 14, 2008
READ MY ALL NEW ULTIMATE MAGAZINE POST
What’s on today: Are there too many specialists in the world today? … PLUS … The west’s infra-structure is collapsing – is it time for a re-think? Too much news is really propaganda.
YOU KNOW IT’S THE WRITE WAY
WE’RE SPECIALIST CRAZY
Okay, so I have a medical complaint – I don’t, so don’t panic (apart from chronic fatigue syndrome, that is). I’m speaking metaphorically. Obviously, I would want this sorted out, and I’d want the best, wouldn’t I? I’d want to know that I’m in good hands. But do I necessarily need a specialist?
The easy answer is yes. But I’m not sure this is the right answer. You see, most medical operations are now routine. So couldn’t any competent practitioner perform the task?
Yes, we need the specialist to train doctors in the procedures.
But do we need a specialist, who’s abilities are hardly tested? Or is it more likely that we have been suckered into the idea of the ‘specialist’ in order to guarantee lots of fat incomes for far more specialists than we need?
This is a problem I think exists in most areas of life. The specialist seems to have taken over, and is doing very nicely financially because of it. But in most areas of life the tasks the specialist does are quite routine.
Yes, we need specialists in every area in order to research and train the people who carry out such tasks in society, industry and elsewhere. But I can’t get it out of my head that we have far too many specialists doing jobs that don’t really need specialists in the first place.
© Anthony North, January 2008
DEATH OF INFRA-STRUCTURE
The recent tragic death of ten month old Rhianna Hardie could have been avoided. Scolded to death when a hot water tank burst and showered her whilst in bed, the authorities knew of the basic problem with this kind of system …
… read more …
IT’S JUST PROPAGANDA
The recent release of a dramatic video by the Pentagon of Iranian speedboats threatening US Navy ships produced a wry smile from me. I could imagine people all over the west being glued to it and worrying …
… read more …
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poseidonsmuse said
Medically-speaking, “specialists” typically can only truly be called specialists if they receive board certification in whatever specialty of medicine they desire to specialise in (be it plastic surgery, gynecology etc.). This includes a four year medical degree (usually on top of a three or four year bachelor’s and a minimum of an internship and three-year residency or fellowship).
As with any field, medicine (thankfully) has developed and evolved to a point where a practitioner can spend almost an entire lifetime learning about ONE body system, let alone all of them (general practitioner). If the problem exists that specialists are doing the jobs of general practitioners (or vice versa), then the problem lies in the referral system, not the specialists themselves. Monetary padding or not, specialisation does come at a price (lower case load, more difficult case loads, increased liability/malpractice, higher operating costs for equipment etc. in order for the practitioner to provide specialised health care…), so all is not necessarily rosey in the land of the Cardiologist despite their heftier paycheques (especially if these practitioners own private practices).
Personally speaking, I would like to go to a qualified professional that spends enough of their continuing education time on their specialty of interest (to ensure quality of care). This becomes increasingly important in difficult or referral cases. Having said this, I would certainly agree with you that some general practitioners may, and can be, under-utilised in the face of the suffering politics and agenda of (especially) governmentally funded health-care programs (such as exist in Canada and the UK).
Anyway, just my opinion for whatever it’s worth and I certainly respect yours, given our individual and likely different experiences within our respective health-care systems.
Nice post. Keep up the good work. You keep me thinking (and on my toes!).
anthonynorth said
Hi PM,
I suppose, as in everything I touch, we need balance. Yes, when a specialist is definitely needed, you get a specialist, but I’ve known so many situations where this is not necessarily needed today.
Consider our increasing technology. So often it is the machine that provides the evidence for a condition. So yes, you need a specialist to look at the ‘data’ – a job done at a desk, taking seconds at a time – but do you automatically need the specialist there at the consultation?
If data is accrued from the actual examination, yes, but not to oversee the switching on of a machine.
There are so many incidences such as this that just make me ask the question. And in many other fields, outside medicine, the situation is even worse.
Carol_Noble said
What is a specialist? A person who has more knowledge about a subject than the ordinary person? Someone who has practical as well as theoretical knowledge? A person who has absorbed all that he/she has been told about a subject? Or a person who has wisdom?
Wisdom and knowledge have become entwined as meaning the same thing – they don’t! Anyone can have theoretical knowledge, that is what is on this computer and the internet, but not everyone has the practical knowledge, and the experience to know when to use something and when not to. This applies to every subject in life.
I would rather believe and follow the instructions of someone who can be determined as having wisdom than just having knowledge.
We often consider our ancestors who were hunter/gatherers as not being particularly advanced. They didn’t grow their own food the way that society has done now for centuries. No, they just picked the food and ate it! No they didn’t. They had to know the time of the year and time of the day; they had to know the environment surrounding the thing they were seeking; they had to be able to indentify and then process the actual food they were seeking; they had to know and understand how everything could be used, and in what context. Those who sought wood to burn in a fire had to know which type of wood could produce the result they were seeking, whether it be for a heat source, a smoke filled form for preserving food, which wood’s ashes were best used for soap and other articles, etc. etc. Then it was also necessary to know how to create fire, and what made good tinder in that area, and much much more wisdom besides. Just knowing how to do something was not quite the same as doing it so anyone who was capable of doing the right action at the right time in the right way had wisdom, and I would prefer that to someone having a lot of knowledge but very little wisdom as to how to use it.
Wisdom however is something that is now lacking in society, and a word that no-one even thinks about more’s the pity. Bring back Wisdom!!!
anthonynorth said
Hi Carol,
This is very true. Indeed, computing seems to be causing changes in our mind-set to only do data-processing, totally ignoring the patterning required for wisdom.
My whole philosophy is based on my idea of Patternology, and the need for a new holistic way of thinking to go alongside specialisation.
Not a replacement, but a bedfellow, it would work by comparing specialisations to see what they might miss.
Wisdom, I’m certain, actually comes from a more holistic way of thinking.