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Is the new professionalism and ACP's new ethics really just about following guidelines?

The Charter ( Medical Professionalism in the New Millennium.A Physician's Charter) did not deal with just the important relationship of ...

Sunday, January 07, 2018

"..how little they really know about what they imagine they can design" -Mega medical hubris

Frederick Hayek was talking about the "curious task of economics " That sentiment can as easily be applied to the central planners of medicine. Dr. Donald Berwick has written about the "need" medicine has for "[wise] leaders with plans".

Five years ago I blogged about the need for a lecture for medical students to underline the dangers of hubris.The type of hubris exhibited by the recently minted expert typically is a self limited affliction as growing experience overwhelms earlier exaggerated estimates of one's knowledge and medical expertise.

Nowhere is hubris more highlighted than it is in those intellectuals who profess to know what it best for others, everyone.This is not the  usually limited hubris of the novice but rather a permanent more exuberant hubris typical of the self appointed philosopher leader who profess to know what is best for everyone as is the case with the self appointed spokesmen for population medicine.

The notion of wise leaders with plans ( for others) finds historical precedence in Plato and his advocacy of philosopher kings.




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