People Before Patients

From our latest publication "Patient-ing: Living In-Between Worlds" available here: https://lnkd.in/gJ8-eZ3p "Health care is modeled after a model and has developed a way of language-ing the health care experience. Even though health care is not an independent and conscious storytelling entity as such, its culture is influenced by the consensus that forms from the many people of influence who shape it through the quality of their attention. Scientific materialism being one such example of a cultural consensus and a prevailing health care story that is being taught in medical schools around the world and forms the philosophical basis of health care’s systemic structures. This, despite many of its assumptions only being partially true. More than a set of ideas, it is a way of modeling the universe, and in turn, it has been incredibly influential in shaping our modern health care experience. So influential in fact that we take the model of reality as reality itself; we elevate the abstracted word above the experience. If you look closely at health care and an understanding of the patient experience, one can start to discern ways of sensemaking codified into models that have developed over time."

From our latest publication- Patient-ing: Living In-Between Worlds - available from our website here: https://lnkd.in/gJ8-eZ3p "The silos, waiting rooms, protocols and procedures, and hyper specialization we experience in health care today are all manifestations of a 20th century, left-brained and abstracted way of attending to reality. This is why health care systems often look and feel nothing like the experience of patient-ing. This skewed model of the world is why health care is experienced much more like Kansas than Oz, even though the experience of patient-ing is saturated with rich color and difference. This tension in living between worlds is rooted in health care’s legacy. It manifests across its modern-day practice and is reflected in the challenges that arise from this black and white way of looking at things."

What if every conversation was a chance to turn toward something that matters, not alone, but with others. A good conversation is like an intricate web. Every interaction shapes our shared experience. Our words and actions are interconnected, weaving a complex pattern in this human fairy tale. Let's be mindful of the impact we can have, fostering understanding and positive connections. In the realm of our Fireside chats, each exchange contributes to the collective experience. Together we go places that are difficult to traverse alone - this invites emergence ; ways of seeing new openings to old problems. Here is some terrain we have explored in our Fireside Chats so far: -Living an authentic life -How do you understand your time on this Earth? -What is the dream you haven’t dreamt yet? -Holding many views all at once -The regrets of the dying -The process is the goal -Doing nothing and getting everything done Where will you be the next time we meet by the Fire? Where have you always longed to be? Join us on October 30th at 1 pm EDT via Zoom for our next Fireside Chats: https://lnkd.in/gPWBf3Uf You can also join us more regularly - we meet every 2nd Wednesday at 1 pm EDT. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/gHcEKZa9

The instrumentalization of health care - when we engineer solutions for the wrong problem. https://lnkd.in/gZW4zZ-i

https://lnkd.in/gqGFwpJC Forwards, not back Medicine aims to return bodies to the state they were in before illness. But there’s a better way of thinking about health

You go to see the doctor. "I'm sorry to tell you, but the diagnosis is fatal. It's life." "How long do I have to live?", you ask. "I don't know", they answer. A loving invitation from Francis Laleman, #PeopleBeforePatients advisor and dear friend, on the practice of radical okayness. https://lnkd.in/g4XbmAEs

An open invitation from our Founding Director Mark Stolow... https://lnkd.in/gx_NT438

Exploring the meaning of LOVE A month-long, transformational journey led by Bhaskar Goswami Begins October 7th at 12 pm EDT ❤️REGISTER HERE: https://lnkd.in/gFQhxkBa When was the first time you were deeply touched by love? Love is a powerful seed that once planted can expand and ease suffering. It is a natural resource that is infinitely available. How do we cultivate it across our experience? Join us in October as we take a playful voyage into the terrain of love from the inside out. Learn how to harness your capacity to more deeply connect to the experience of love and draw from its natural wisdom.

We asked people to draw the shape of the patient experience. The photo below reveals some of what they told us. Time and time again people described the patient experience in words, metaphors, and symbols that were complex and nuanced, like a rich, moving weave of a tapestry that has no borders. We heard from them about the strain they experience when health care attempts to draw maps that flatten those differences, as though, being hard to pin down, they could only be omitted and overlooked. Read more from our discoveries in our latest publication - Patient-ing: Living in-Between Worlds available from our website here... https://lnkd.in/gJ8-eZ3p

From "A Delicate Activism" by Allan Kaplan and Sue Davidoff. Offered here as part of our reflection on systems change in #healthcare. Our ecology is so fragile, and our social fabric so fraught, that every step we take towards enhancing life risks knotting the skein. Already our footprints are everywhere, but we simply seem to trample our own best intentions underfoot. There is something we may be missing – because many attempts at working with change snag on their own assumptions. How can we approach the world differently? [...] A delicate activism is truly radical in that it is aware of itself, and understands that its way of seeing is the change it wants to see. This heralds a seismic shift towards a more social and ecological form of activism, towards a future that supports life.