Turning Away From Industrial Health Care Toward Careful and Kind Care

Abstract

The health care industry is increasingly driven by the pursuit of value. The author of this Invited Commentary believes this value is nothing more than a business rebranding of efficiency with little connection to care. Overclocked clinicians, increasingly impaired by symptoms of burnout and too focused on documenting, cannot see patients in high definition. The author shows that treatment which is blind to patients' contexts often overwhelms patients with medical errands, a topic absent from medical curricula. Care must not be the means by which health care satisfies its industrial mission but, rather, the end for which it mobilizes its means. In unhurried consultations, clinicians must appreciate and respond sensibly to patients' problematic situation, and care for and about them. Medical training must cultivate future clinicians who value caring over caring for value. Medical educators and trainees at all levels must turn away from industrial health care, toward careful and kind care for all.