The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

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Preparing Successful Future Physicians to Meet
Emerging Social Needs in Humanitarian Ways
(continued)

My interests in psychology, neuroscience, and electrical engineering gave me a strong appreciation for ways where all of these areas would eventually merge for the betterment of humanity. Interests in East / West spirituality also made me mindful of the many ramifications concerning what we might tap into. This composite view made me mindful of both huge potential mixed with huge responsibility.

Strides in ‘electro-medicine’ including imaging and non-invasive blood testing are only part of the emerging story. Chiropractors now use thermal detectors to assess problems with spinal alignment. Electro-acupuncture has the potential to preserve the best of traditional Chinese medicine while providing new non-invasive ways to deal with not only pain, but also a litany of medical problems. Lasers are rapidly becoming the hallmark many surgical and dental procedures and the huge potential for low-level lasers is virtually untapped.

While attending an imaging conference at the Mayo clinic about ten years ago, I had the opportunity to ask a fun question to Mayo leaders who happened to make themselves available at our conference. The question was ‘what will the future of healthcare look like?’ The answer was surprising. Someone asked me if I remembered the Star Trek series… and went on to say that the future of medicine would have two significant aspects. One aspect was the team-based approach pioneered by the Mayo brothers at the turn of the last century. The other aspect involved electro-medicine. They suggested that light, sound, electricity and magnetic fields would play a major role in prevention and diagnosis. Someone in the panel boldly suggested that there will come a time when real-life healthcare professionals will use tools much like those used on the Enterprise to heal patients!

Researchers also know that ambient lighting, color, sound, music, air ionization and even art and architecture may have significant ramifications on the health of human system.

Physicians also know that spirituality can be most important to patients and that multi-cultural diversity may add significant complexity to case management.

In view of these emerging trends, the physician of the future may play a very different role than the typical physicians of today. The emerging model will be different from a variety of perspectives. In fact, the rapidly emerging healthcare and wellness model is clearly a broad-based bio/psycho/social/techno/spiritual one with many roots and cultural ramifications.

Patients themselves are mostly interested in preventing illness and getting well rapidly with minimal cost. Driven by both intrinsic motivators and societal pressures, physicians of many persuasions, including allopathic, osteopathic, naturopathic, chiropractic, and oriental medicine, while having their differences, are working together to provide total solutions. It is now common for medical and osteopathic students to study alternative and complementary approaches, while students of chiropractic and naturopathic healthcare are most interested in learning about relevant drug and surgical approaches.

It is most likely that progressive universities will have common pre-clinical programs where future MD’s, ND’s, DO’s, DC’s, and OMD’s will take their first two years together, before branching off into their special fields. Further evolution will most likely lead to interdisciplinary programs, such as MD/ND, DO/OMD, MD/PsyD and a variety of special certificates en route to their physician degree. Nutrition, stress management, pain management and acupuncture will most likely be among the mix of many certificate options. Even more comprehensive composite degree programs of a holistic nature are on the horizon. Perhaps these interdisciplinary programs may be called ‘master physician programs.’ In any event, new innovations are likely to have a strong emphasis on prevention.

Stress probably accounts for more than 50% of all medical visits and excessive stress due to intrinsic and extrinsic conflict is among the most prevalent and insidious banes of modern organizations. The responsible physician of the future will certainly need to know more about organizational dynamics of the workplace if he/she wants to successfully understand their patients’ disease processes and how to help them.

While professional curricular innovations are already happening, there is also much room for pragmatic innovation in the pre-professional curriculum. Given the high demands of future professional education, what better place than pre-professional education to set the stage, all while making optimal use of overall educational time? My training as an engineer has encouraged me towards efficient and effective innovation.

With these technological innovations already emerging, the need for memorization in subjects like organic chemistry and physics may have much less value for the future physician. With innovations like the Internet, one may capture the most up to date information with a few keystrokes.

More efficient and effective use of pre-professional educational might include case-based subjects which will best prepare future physicians, nurses, dentists and others for the future. Emerging courses might have names like ‘Holistic Wellness and Healthcare Excellence,’ ‘Anthropological Views of Traditional Healing,’ ‘Organizational Behavior and Stress,’ ‘Spirituality and Health,’ ‘Multi-Cultural Diversity,’ and ‘Humanities, the Arts and Health,’ ‘Nutrition and Fitness in the Workplace.’ A variety of pre-professional certificates may be of considerable benefit to motivate students along these proposed pre-professional tracks.

Published: November 22, 2004

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