Movement
#HumanizeMedical is a movement that started with the notion that patients are human first. The medical practitioners treating them need to put human aspect before cure. They can only do this when medical education emphasizes 'being humane' as the core value.
In its nature, it's not incremental-improvement campaign; it's a disruptive movement aiming at total system redesign — from premedical education to specialization to practice to public healthcare delivery in all parts of the world.
#HumanizeMedical was started in May 2014 by Wali Zahid, a futurist and a disruptor. Based in Pakistan, Wali has taught healthcare professionals, medical faculty and medical administrators. Wali is currently the CEO of SkillCity, a learning and coaching firm, with Fortune-500 clients on its list.
The movement is being run by volunteers.
How it began
It began with a death in the family.
Wali Zahid's younger sister Fatima Gul (18 April 1966-8 May 2014) died of GBS, a rare disease, after three weeks on a ventilator in ICU. During her hospitalization, Wali became a night attendant and observed the fundamental flaw in medical practice. One word: apathy!
More on this, in Wali's first post on his website, walizahid.com.
A week later, Wali published a two part post on his LinkedIn profile. In response to these posts and his Facebook and Twitter followers encouraged him to take it to next step as it was a global issue.
Wali's son, Ali Zahid, currently based in Dubai, bought a domain and set up this website.
Volunteers will take it from here.
Today as it is
Some of the striking facts are:
- Access to healthcare globally is dismal amid millions of preventable deaths
- Where you have access to healthcare, it's expensive
- Complaints of wrong diagnosis, or overtreatment are commonplace
- Physicians, hospitals and pharmaceuticals put profits before patients
- Doctors are overworked, fatigued by routines and emergency nature of their jobs and become apathetic.
- Procedures take precedence over personalized, individualized care
- Patients and their attendants feel being neglected, uninformed, dismissed
- Doctor's empathy and patient cure are considered in either/or relationship.
Much of the above can be attributed to long, boring nature of medical education and residency spread over 16 years after high school where all-powerful faculty desensitize them.
This is where the total system redesign reform comes.
Tomorrow as you will see it
By 2050, we expect these specific nine outcomes to happen:
Medical Education
The length of medical education is reduced to half
Currently, with country variations, it is spread over 16 years after high school: a 4-year premedical, 4-year medical, 4-year residency, 4-year specialization.
The curriculum will comprise only critical parts required for patient cure and those that interest students in their future specialty or subspecialty area.
The curriculum, which is currently based on a 100-year-old reform, is outdated. The students cram things they may not need, forget them as soon as they pass exams and undergo little practice while on school.
The curriculum will focus more on health rather than disease, more on wellness rather than sickness.
On a side, the medical terminology will be reformed from Latin to English that any layman can understand.
The learning & teaching go digital, tablet-based and app-based
The heavy, print and text-based editions will be replaced by visually-appealing apps in Human Physiology or Human Development Psychopathology on a tablet the students will carry during their school time. They will turn into e-Doctor and their patients into e-Patient. Just like an HP/Dell engineer who has app-based competence in his all machines and models and can diagnose with a touch of a button without the need to memorize all models.
Beyond face-to-face, classroom delivery, there will be other delivery platforms: MOOCs, distance learning, self-access.
We also need to consider about those potential medics who do not want to go through the rigour of medical education (bit have self-taught them), but could be gifted physicians, and how to incorporate them into mainstream.
The medical faculty will treat students as peers
Overwhelming, powerplay will find an exit door at medical schools and in residency halls. From the current class size in 3-digits, the number become smaller and each student is treated the way they want: mass customization is the name of game.
Currently, the professors may become dismissive, allusive, distant. Because: that's the way they had been treated at medical school! This vicious cycle will stop.
Today's Gen-Y students, who have little respect for authority and low tolerance threshold, will be treated as they want: with a paradoxical blend of a bit of guiding and a bit of autonomy. If their self-esteem is not hurt at the training stage, there's likelihood that they will treat patients with dignity and empathy when they become physicians.
The assessments at all stages will change
From admission to a medical schools to final exam at MD/MBBS or later specialization, assessments will change from current proficiency-testing to their aptitude, drive and preference for this long-haul flight of medical practice.
This Drive Factor may deal with the student and physician dropout ratios. Only those will come and stay who have a passion and can deal with routinized nature of medical profession.
A key role of regulator bodies comes into play here. They too need to be open to newer realities and new times. The balancing act between stringent and pragmatic will need to be revisited.
Medical Practice
We become patient-centered
Because physicians love their profession, and not abhor it, every patient that walks into their door at clinics or hospitals, is treated as an individual and not just a number. Paramedic is treated with dignity by doctors and they, in return, treat patients humanely.
Healthcare delivery
Healthcare delivery becomes easy and cheap
Currently three costs overwhelm the delivery. All three will undergo change.
Drugs
Drugs will become cheaper to make and deliver
So far, R&D has been expensive and a billion-dollar business. It doesn't need to be that way in future.
Today's Gen-Y students can create anything provided you are able to excite them enough. Case in point: a 15-year-old created a cancer testing method that was 168-times faster, 400-times more sensitive and 26,000-times cheaper than medical standard. Give them these problems to solve. With problem-based learning (PBL), they can do wonders and can come up with new drugs faster and cheaper.
Thanks to technological innovation, production, warehousing and distribution are becoming effortless. This will help in getting cheaper drugs where these are required.
Medical equipment
With 3D printing, equipment is easy, cheaper to make
Currently, converting a 150-bed into a 300-bed hospital requires significant planning, finances and time. Because the equipment was bulky, hard to get by and was expensive. With technology, particularly wearables and 3D printing, making it all cheaper, smaller, and minimalist, it is now far easier. DIY beds, paperless environment, app-based diagnosis and treatment will make it easy for access to healthcare in large numbers.
Hospital buildings
Crowd-funding and mobile building design & construction will make it easy to build new hospitals at speed
Setting up a hospital, or a teaching hospital, used to be a gigantic task. Only governments, churches, billionaires or foundations could imagine setting up hospitals. No more. Anyone with access to people and social media can crowd-source funding for a new hospital or expanding it.
The innovation in building technologies allow to build hospitals in less time with less money. Moveable buildings will allow hospitals to walk to wherever there are roads and there are patients.
Education
Changing the nature, length and delivery of medical education is the core of this #HumanizeMedical movement.
HM accentuates the human aspect.
Students first
Student is the center of universe at medical school. Mass customization is the name of the game.
Treat them as they want - with dignity. No powerplay, bullying or harassment by senior faculty.
The aim is to make medical student both proficient and humane.
We will aim to feature best practices from around the world. If you know any medical school with this as core value, send us their case study and we will publish it here.
Duration
The current duration of medical education may have met the needs of earlier times.
Currently, with country variations, it is spread over 16 years after high school: a 4-year premedical, 4-year medical, 4-year residency, 4-year specialization.
In the presence of technology-based education delivery, we need to cut the length of medical education to at least half.
We will aim to feature best practices from around the world in this area. If you know any medical school which has experimented with reducing the duration, send us their case study and we will publish it here.
Content
The curriculum will comprise only critical parts required for patient cure and those that interest students in their future specialty or subspecialty area.
The curriculum will focus more on health rather than disease, more on wellness rather than sickness.
On a side, the medical terminology will be reformed from Latin to English that any layman can understand.
We will aim to feature best practices from around the world in this area. If you know any medical school which has experimented with redesigning the curriculum, send us their case study and we will publish it here.
Case in point: Harvard Medical School's 2017 curriculum
Delivery methods
The learning & teaching go digital, tablet-based and app-based
The heavy, print and text-based editions will be replaced by visually-appealing apps in Human Physiology or Human Development Psychopathology on a tablet the students will carry during their school time.
They will turn into e-Doctor and their patients into e-Patient. Just like an HP/Dell engineer who has app-based competence in his all machines and models and can diagnose with a touch of a button without the need to memorize all models.
Beyond face-to-face, classroom delivery, there will be other delivery platforms: MOOCs, distance learning, self-access.
We also need to consider about those potential medics who do not want to go through the rigour of medical education (bit have self-taught them), but could be gifted physicians, and how to incorporate them into mainstream.
We will aim to feature best practices from around the world in this area. If you know any medical school is experimenting with paperless, tablet-based delivery, send us their case study and we will publish it here.
Faculty behavior
The medical faculty will treat students as peers and overwhelming powerplay will find an exit door at medical schools and in residency halls. From the current class size in 3-digits, the number become smaller and each student is treated the way they want: mass customization is the name of game.
Currently, the professors may become dismissive, allusive, distant. Because: that's the way they had been treated at medical school! This vicious cycle will stop.
Today's Gen-Y students, who have little respect for authority and low tolerance threshold, will be treated as they want: with a paradoxical blend of a bit of guiding and a bit of autonomy. If their self-esteem is not hurt at the training stage, there's likelihood that they will treat patients with dignity and empathy when they become physicians.
We will aim to feature best practices from around the world in this area. If you know any medical school which makes it faculty respect the student and make faculty accountable, send us their case study and we will publish it here.
Assessments
The assessments at all stages - from admission to a medical schools to final exam at MD/MBBS or later specialization - change from current proficiency-testing to their aptitude, drive and preference for this long-haul flight of medical practice.
This Drive Factor may deal with the student and physician dropout ratios. Only those will come and stay who have a passion and can deal with routinized nature of medical profession.
A key role of regulator bodies comes into play here. They too need to be open to newer realities and new times. The balancing act between stringent and pragmatic will need to be revisited.
We will aim to feature best practices from around the world in this area. If you know any medical school which has experimented with assessments, send us their case study and we will publish it here.
Practice
When in medical practice, patient becomes the center of our universe.
All system and procedures revolve around patient's needs and wellbeing.
Patient first
Because in the new paradigm, physicians love their profession, and not abhor it, every patient that walks into their door at clinics or hospitals, is treated as an individual and not just a number.
Paramedic is treated with dignity by doctors and they, in return, treat patients humanely.
Patient-centered delivery
We all - medical & paramedical - become patient-centered.
Patient before profit
Access to healthcare becomes easy and cheap.
With quality but cheaper drugs and cheaper diagnostic and treatment technologies, cure is provided at the right price. No overtreatment.
Public healthcare delivery
Currently three costs overwhelm the delivery. All three will undergo change.
Drugs
So far, R&D has been expensive and a billion-dollar business. It doesn't need to be that way.
Today's Gen-Y students can create anything provided you are able to excite them enough. Case in point: a 15-year-old created a cancer testing method that was 168-times faster, 400-times more sensitive and 26,000-times cheaper than medical standard. Give them these problems to solve. With problem-based learning (PBL), they can do wonders and can come up with new drugs faster and cheaper.
Thanks to technological innovation, production, warehousing and distribution are becoming effortless. This will help in getting cheaper drugs where these are required.
Medical equipment
Currently, converting a 150-bed into a 300-bed hospital requires significant planning, finances and time. Because the equipment was bulky, hard to get by and was expensive. With technology, particularly wearables, making it all cheaper, smaller, and minimalist, it is now far easier. DIY beds, paperless environment, app-based diagnosis and treatment will make it easy for access to healthcare in large numbers.
Hospital buildings
Setting up a hospital, or a teaching hospital, used to be a gigantic task. Only governments, churches, billionaires or foundations could imagine setting up hospitals. No more. Anyone with access to people and social media can crowd-source funding for a new hospital or expanding it.
The innovation in building technologies allow to build hospitals in less time with less money. Moveable buildings will allow hospitals to walk to wherever there are roads and there are patients.
Volunteer. Now!
To many, #HumanizeMedical is an impossible movement to carry on. Not to us.
Because we believe in God and His blessings. After that, you are our biggest support.
Volunteer now! Spread the word.
Spread #HumanizeMedical's Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter pages.
Share existing reform case studies.
Write for website.
Lobby for newer, reformed medical education and practice.
Become advocate.
To reach out: humanizemed@gmail.com