"However, fitting into the healthcare culture as a consumer representative turned out to be more challenging than first imagined, and offering to share my insights and experience in “High-Reliability Organisations” felt like I was offering to share the plague."
Sadly, my immunity to the plague was very short lived!
After writing the comment above I continued within the Patient Centred Community of Practice and became involved in the leadership team for a Regional Mental Health Unit & became interested in suicide prevention. Through this I attended a presentation by Prof Ed Coffey (Zero Suicide Initiative) https://zerosuicide.org/ed-coffey/. His presentation was inspiring and in particular his emphasis on the use of Systems Thinking. I stood up and asked him a question in front of 100 people. "Did you employ any Systems Engineers?". "I certainly did! As a medical professor I thought I knew everything, but the engineers showed me an entirely new way to look at the world."
After the presentation I went up and thanked him. He shook my hand, threw his arm around me and said, "stick with it! your time has come!"
Sadly Not! Several years later I have little to do with health care or advocacy. Of the hundreds of individuals involved in healthcare I've met over the years, few if any are interested. Of the 100 that witnessed Prof Ed Coffey's response, I received one initial phone call with no follow up.
I still believe there are vast opportunities to reduce the risk of killing people unnecessarily. I’m still happy to help should anyone in the healthcare system be capable of stepping outside their comfort zone!
Regards,
Mark Cantor
markacantor@me.com should anyone accept the challenge!
Comments (1)
"However, fitting into the healthcare culture as a consumer representative turned out to be more challenging than first imagined, and offering to share my insights and experience in “High-Reliability Organisations” felt like I was offering to share the plague." Sadly, my immunity to the plague was very short lived! After writing the comment above I continued within the Patient Centred Community of Practice and became involved in the leadership team for a Regional Mental Health Unit & became interested in suicide prevention. Through this I attended a presentation by Prof Ed Coffey (Zero Suicide Initiative) https://zerosuicide.org/ed-coffey/. His presentation was inspiring and in particular his emphasis on the use of Systems Thinking. I stood up and asked him a question in front of 100 people. "Did you employ any Systems Engineers?". "I certainly did! As a medical professor I thought I knew everything, but the engineers showed me an entirely new way to look at the world." After the presentation I went up and thanked him. He shook my hand, threw his arm around me and said, "stick with it! your time has come!" Sadly Not! Several years later I have little to do with health care or advocacy. Of the hundreds of individuals involved in healthcare I've met over the years, few if any are interested. Of the 100 that witnessed Prof Ed Coffey's response, I received one initial phone call with no follow up. I still believe there are vast opportunities to reduce the risk of killing people unnecessarily. I’m still happy to help should anyone in the healthcare system be capable of stepping outside their comfort zone! Regards, Mark Cantor markacantor@me.com should anyone accept the challenge!