I have been fortunate in my career and experienced a wide array of opportunities, but I still remember my first exposure to a fellow trainee who was from a different country and who had experienced a significantly dissimilar cultural background than mine.
What impressed me more than our differences, however, was how smart she was and how astute her diagnosis and treatment plans were compared with my own early-stage knowledge — and she was a few years younger than me! She was not from our continent, and she ostensibly had come to North America to gain “better experience” than what she considered was available back home. I think she taught many of us more than she gained, and she eventually went back home to an extraordinarily successful career.
This was an early lesson in being open-minded and receptive to the benefits of cultural differences.
Similarly, perhaps, I also remember thinking as I started my formal clinical career that nothing ever seemed to change in my chosen surgical discipline. The disease presentations were repetitive, the medications often similar, and the procedural approaches well known. Boy, was I naïve, even dumb, on that one!
As I matured and gained more experience, I was better able to recognize the evolution of our profession in real time. When I ultimately coupled my consideration of the past several decades, even millennia, I better appreciated that there has certainly been outstanding change in medicine. For today’s evolving environment, it’s exciting, it’s bold, and it’s unprecedented in terms of the pace of change for the future of medicine.
MARRYING CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND MEDICINE
Now, pull the two together — cultural differences and the evolution of medicine — to link them with the rapidly changing communication capabilities across the globe. The net result is the once inconceivable opportunity to share, collaborate, and partner in such a fashion that the healthcare industry could experience a logarithmic transformation internationally. Transcultural learning and improved patient care internationally have the potential to quickly accelerate from our current state.
Certainly, there are regional differences in disease prevalence, but our human physiology remains strikingly similar despite our genetic differences. Simplistically thinking, cultural traditions and the resources available to manage health or treat disease are only what separates us across countries in healthcare and medicine. The capability to communicate globally regardless of location is now a reality, and this should be factored into our approaches for improving the healthcare industry across numerous countries simultaneously.
Comparably, the discipline of global health and the numerous initiatives supported by a host of governmental agencies, non-government organizations (NGOs), religious groups, and professional societies have made good progress over the decades. These entities are continuously under duress with inadequate funding and a paucity of human resources, but the opportunities afforded by contemporary communication channels, including the provision of telehealth, provide the opportunity to think differently and inventively.
EMBRACING THE HERE AND NOW
In most countries, for the near and intermediate future, there is still dependency by the industry on the patient-physician relationship, and most still consider physicians as the natural stewards of the healthcare industry.
Assuming this dependency continues, there is an opportunity for physicians as leaders across the industry to continue embracing the rapid pace of change in medicine, to further embrace the opportunity of cultural differences, and to fully leverage the potential of rapid communication in today’s environment. By doing so, our societies collectively can benefit from the medical profession’s innovative and creative approaches to improving health and better managing disease across the globe.
At some level, all physicians are leaders, regardless of whether they choose administrative roles or seek formal job titles. As leaders, therefore, all physicians can embrace the pace of change in medical science and can be open to learning about the variety of options available when considering cultural differences. With the communication environment now widely prevalent and expanding, the opportunity to share, learn, collaborate, and partner with others has never been more available.
Embracing a more inclusive approach to gaining knowledge and sharing experience with others carries far more benefit than not. The medical profession gains, and perhaps patients gain even more.
Physician leadership, again at all levels, has the history and legacy as a profession for helping to make this occur. By embracing this approach, physician leadership can also help redefine the role of physicians in modern societies across numerous countries. Inter-professional healthcare teams are also evolving rapidly, but this trend can also be positively influenced, with physician leadership helping to redefine the role of physicians.
EMBRACING DIFFERENCES
This association has enjoyed the presence of individual members in 30 to 40 countries for many years now. Additionally, AAPL has successfully launched several international collaboration initiatives and institutional contracts. Through its breadth and depth of capabilities with physician and inter-professional leadership, AAPL shall continue to expand and leverage the pace of change in medicine, continue to embrace the opportunities of cross-cultural collaboration, and use numerous channels for communication while also being innovative with the technologies of generative AI and its offshoots.
Reflect on your own training exposures to others who were different than you. Reflect on how much you shared and learned together. Likely, there are some with whom you remain in contact professionally, perhaps even personally. Technology has certainly helped make that happen. Taking that individual experience to a broader level is within your capability — embrace the potential of what it represents.
For several generations, this industry has been trying to disrupt itself through efforts to make healthcare better. This industry already aspires to provide high-quality, safe, efficient, and better value health and healthcare for society. As physicians and leaders, we have always been readily adaptable to the evolving trends in our industry. At times, these trends are readily embraced, while at others, there is hesitancy and resistance. Now is not the time to be hesitant; now is a time to appreciate how much potential exists for creating large-scale change on so many levels — locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.
Remember, leading and helping to create significant positive change is our overall intent as physician leaders. AAPL focuses on maximizing the potential of physician-led, inter-professional leadership to help create personal and organizational transformation that benefits patient outcomes, improves workforce wellness, and refines healthcare delivery internationally.
Therefore, as physician leaders, we must embrace the complexities of our industry. We can choose to embrace the opportunities where our individual and collective energies can help create the beneficial changes that are so desperately needed. We must continue to be innovative and adaptive in our efforts. Let us keep maximizing the opportunities placed continually in front of our profession.
Through this international AAPL community, we all can continue seeking deeper levels of professional and personal development and recognize ways we can each generate constructive influence at all levels. As physician leaders, let us become more engaged, stay engaged, and help others to become engaged. Exploring and creating opportunities for broader levels of positive transformation in healthcare across the globe is within our reach — individually and collectively.