Drugs is getting sooner, louder, and extra environment friendly, and many people really feel one thing quietly slipping away. We speak about burnout, ethical harm, and depersonalized care, however the deeper query is usually left untouched: How will we maintain the soul of drugs alive whereas constructing methods that should scale?
I encountered that query in an surprising place, not in a coverage assembly, not in a spreadsheet, and never in an architectural blueprint, however at a piano.
Years in the past, Fu Jen Catholic College in Taiwan confronted an “unimaginable mission.” We had a medical faculty, however no educating hospital of our personal. In a world the place coaching websites form identification, tradition, and medical judgment, that absence was greater than an administrative hole; it was a risk to the integrity of medical training. Constructing a hospital from the bottom up required not solely funding and planning, however a sturdy human middle: a motive to maintain going when the numbers didn’t look type.
On the time, I used to be skilled as a surgeon and served in college management. However I additionally carried one other lifelong identification: I used to be a classical pianist. Like many clinicians, I had stored that a part of myself “exterior of drugs,” as if it have been a non-public passion unrelated to skilled life. I might later be taught the alternative: that our nonmedical passions can turn into important instruments for constructing humane medical establishments.
The synergy of a twin identification: surgeon and pianist
In fundraising, I found one thing that stunned me. A slide deck can clarify a venture, however it not often strikes a room. A piano efficiency, nevertheless, can create a shared emotional house the place folks keep in mind why therapeutic issues.
At a number of crucial moments in our marketing campaign, a single piece (typically Chopin) did what my finest administrative language couldn’t. It reminded donors and colleagues {that a} hospital isn’t merely an infrastructure venture. It’s a ethical promise. Individuals didn’t give as a result of they admired a constructing plan; they gave as a result of they may really feel the human which means beneath it.
That have modified the way in which I considered management. A doctor’s life exterior of drugs isn’t a distraction. It will possibly deepen our management inside drugs. After we carry our entire selves into the work, we mannequin a form of professionalism that features empathy, endurance, and reverence for all times, qualities that no KPI can absolutely seize.
Designing a therapeutic atmosphere, not only a useful machine
As our plans moved ahead, we resisted the temptation to deal with the hospital as a purely technical system. After all, we wanted security, effectivity, and fashionable workflows. However we additionally wanted an atmosphere that communicated dignity.
That philosophy turned seen in our public areas. Within the hospital foyer, a monumental ceramic art work, The Tree of Life, was put in as a centerpiece. It was not ornament. It was a message: Sufferers getting into this constructing aren’t “instances” passing by way of a pipeline. They’re human beings who should be held with heat.
That is what I imply by a hospital “with a soul.” It isn’t sentimental branding. It’s design that aligns the establishment’s bodily house with its moral intent.
Passing humanism down: a duet as mentorship
Humanism can not depend on a founder’s persona. It have to be transmitted by way of tradition.
At a current ebook occasion reflecting on our hospital’s journey, I performed a piano duet with a second-year medical pupil, a gifted musician in addition to a future clinician. To some, that may seem like a captivating efficiency. To me, it was mentorship in its most direct kind.
I wished youthful colleagues to see one thing plainly: Humanism isn’t an elective. If we would like trainees to retain empathy, creativeness, and humility, we should present them that these qualities aren’t “mushy extras.” They’re central to the form of physician sufferers belief.
Religious care as a systemic response to struggling
Even with considerate design and robust tradition, drugs nonetheless confronts a actuality we frequently underaddress: Sickness isn’t solely organic. It’s existential.
That’s the reason we institutionalized “non secular care” as a proper program, to not promote a faith, however to assist the human questions that come up when folks undergo. Ache typically brings worry, meaning-making, and grief. Households wrestle with guilt. Sufferers face identification loss. Clinicians encounter helplessness.
Fashionable drugs excels at treating our bodies. But when we ignore the internal dimension of struggling, we unintentionally intensify the loneliness of sickness. A structured non secular care crew offers sufferers and households a spot the place their deepest questions are handled as authentic, not as inconveniences that sluggish throughput.
This method crosses spiritual boundaries. The phrase “soul” might sound old school, however the actuality it factors to is common: Each particular person needs to be seen as greater than a analysis.
What this taught me about burnout and institution-building
Constructing this hospital taught me a lesson I didn’t be taught in residency: We don’t defend the soul of drugs by working more durable. We defend it by designing establishments that honor human which means, and by permitting clinicians to stay absolutely human.
Our passions (music, artwork, writing, religion, nature, craft) aren’t merely “self-care” after the shift ends. They’re reservoirs of empathy and a focus. They’ll additionally turn into management instruments that form the ethical structure of a company.
So I ask my colleagues a query that has guided me ever since:
What’s your piano?
Discover it. Observe it. Share it.
It might not solely restore your personal soul; it might assist restore the soul of the establishments we construct and serve.
Gerald Kuo, a doctoral pupil within the Graduate Institute of Enterprise Administration at Fu Jen Catholic College in Taiwan, makes a speciality of well being care administration, long-term care methods, AI governance in medical and social care settings, and elder care coverage. He’s affiliated with the House Well being Care Charity Affiliation and maintains an expert presence on Fb, the place he shares updates on analysis and neighborhood work. Kuo helps function a day-care middle for older adults, working intently with households, nurses, and neighborhood physicians. His analysis and sensible efforts give attention to decreasing administrative pressure on clinicians, strengthening continuity and high quality of elder care, and creating sustainable service fashions by way of information, know-how, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. He’s significantly serious about how rising AI instruments can assist growing old medical workforces, improve care supply, and construct higher belief between well being methods and the general public.
