What is healthcare success?
This is another in a series of blog posts by Dhru Shah. He is a specialist periodontist in the UK who runs the influential Dentinal Tubules education platform. His views are valuable and worth considering. This time, he looks at the definition of healthcare success
What is Healthcare?
The word ‘care’ is the welfare or interest of something or someone else. Healthcare = someone else’s health. Let’s think about this in several steps.
Step 1.
To prioritize someone’s health, you must think of yourself second. Focusing on my awards, followers, and million-dollar practice indicates self-interest. Ego has no place in this.
Step 2.
Humility means prioritizing my work over myself. Show some. Your outcomes shape your behavior. When you focus on yourself, your actions become self-centered. Be humble.
Step 3.
When your ego is set aside, you become more open to listening. Therefore, pay attention to what they are saying and truly understand.
Step 4.
Revise your marketing approach. Marketing isn’t just about claiming to be the ‘best southeast practice of the year’ or showcasing your achievements; that’s self-centered and driven by ego. Instead, effective marketing focuses on communicating the problems you can solve for others. Empathetic marketing is far more impactful. To achieve this, you need to effectively complete steps one and two before delving deeply into step three.
Step 5.
Effective marketing fosters a sense of understanding and trust. When they know that you understand their needs, they will approach you with confidence.
Step 6.
Fulfill the trust. Trust is defined as “when someone makes something important to them vulnerable to your actions.” They have placed something significant in your hands. Honor that trust by converting your good intentions into observable actions.
Do your best and use your full capabilities for them.
Step 7.
Humility is essential. Remember, “My work is more important than I am.” Only when you embrace humility do you realize you are not perfect, which opens the door to continuous learning and improvement. This ongoing journey allows you to maximize your potential and give your best effort. Others will see and appreciate the humility and humanity you exhibit.
Step 8.
Be rewarded automatically. This increases their trust in you. They value and reward your contributions. Ironically, your ego is fed as a side effect.
Step 9.
True fulfilment comes from within. When you are fulfilled, external validation such as likes, followers, and awards becomes unnecessary.
Step 10.
Take pride in being a healthcare professional and making an impact on society. Healthcare, humility, learning, constant improvement, fulfilment, trust… Think about it.
An excellent post by an excellent commentator and sage of our profession. A recital should be a mandatory part of our annual review.
Congratulations Dhru on putting this together
Yes I second the recital! Loved this. I wish there was more introspection of this variety. So important
Thanks Katherine. I agree. We need more insight, and self awareness within the profession. Dental professionals hone their dental skills to the nth degree but not their own development all the time. Good leadership always begins with the self.
Thank you @Farooq. I appreciate your kind words. Haha a recital of the 10 healthcare success commandments sounds sensible.
What makes a good clinician?
Altruism, kindness and humility, but the greatest of these is humility.
One only has to review the work and clinical conduct of the renown, retired UK neurosurgeon, Henry Marsh CBE, to see this as self-evident.
Thank you Rob. Do tell us more about Henry Marsh.
Hi Druh, if you Google Henry Marsh, you’ll get lots of information about him.
I first came across his existence in 2004, when watching one of the BBC’s “Your life in their hands,” which was broadcast on BBC 1 on the 8th of March; it might still be retrievable from iPlayer.
In it, his deep level of humility was self-evident.
He’s also written a number of books; his first was in 2014, entitled “Do no Harm”, in which his chapter on Hubris is germane and his last was in 2022, entitled “And Finally.”
They say, putting your trust in an airline pilot is safer than putting it in your surgeon, on the basis that at least they’re up there with you, with just as much at stake at getting it right.
Well for me, a surgeon/clinician who has humility is as close as you’re going to get in replicating that concept of “shared risk.”
You know they’re not going to take any chances nor any reckless risks and that they’ll do everything they can to do what’s right for you.
In essence, they’re being a professional; one who puts the interests of their patient completely ahead of their own, whether it be their ego (as you’ve already said), their financial reward or their reputational status.
I worry that dentistry is perhaps losing sight of how important it is to remain being regarded by the public as a profession.
With that comes a level of total trust, where patients believe that it is their best interests that drive the actions of the dentist, not the $ sign.
However, squander that perception at your peril, because once it’s lost, the road back becomes nigh-on impossible.