An EXPLOSION of Compassion Design!
This isn’t some veiled humble-brag message about our event on Compassion Design with Dr. Jim Doty this past weekend—oh no! This is a FULL brag + honest exploration on why you…and I…and everyone in the health field should be designing for compassion. After all, everywhere we look, healthcare falls short and anemic on exhibiting compassion. Have you had enough?
For example, my father is dying of a rare cancer that makes him, as you can imagine, struggle with intensely negative and despairing emotions. And sometimes, to ease his worries, he leans on his oncologist for reassurance and hope. So today he receives a letter from his oncologist starting with the words, “I have some great news!” So he perks up. Does she have a new cure? Help with paying for his medical bills? The letter continues, “We are moving our offices to [blah blah blah]…” #Tonedeaf.
But this past weekend gave me HOPE! Forty leading professionals, clinicians, designers, creatives, and innovators from across the spectrum of health and wellness gathered at our training center for our CONNECT: Design for Compassion workshop. Esteemed Stanford neurosurgery professor and bestselling author, Dr. Jim Doty, was our lead faculty—his work unparalleled in compassion science. By the time they readout their final designs, this tribe of compassion designers had generated actionable, breakthrough ideas for scaling compassion into mental health, pharmacy, functional medicine, digital health, and many more use cases. And the collective power and influence this group has will no doubt move the whole industry!
And YOU, too, can build on this compassion explosion. Here are a few design prompts to fashion your own compassion design into your work, workplace, and sphere of influence.
1. Describe who you want to target. Do you want to be more compassionate towards them or influence them to be more compassionate?
2. Brainstorm two lists: a) What are the current barriers that prevent compassion? b) How can you make compassion either more social (doing it together, part of the culture, etc.) or more rewarding (rituals of reflecting on how it feels good to be compassionate)?
3. Design a plan that takes the best elements from steps 1 and 2. Build in specifics by asking yourself: What, Where, When, How, Who, etc.
Go forth and spread COMPASSION, folks! Right now!
Integrative and Functional Family Medicine Specialist. Expert at optimizing health, reversing chronic disease, creative medical direction, concierge and primary care, telemedicine.
5 年With doctoring being more and more like an assembly line, the human connection, a prerequisite for compassion, is designed out of the equation. ?Unconsciously designed in is burn-out and fatigue, where patients become more of a burden than a joy. ?Stepping out of that system has been life saving for me and allowed me to provide the kind of care that I think is appropriate, compassionate, and personal. #functionalmedicine?#integrativemedicine
Founder of Alzheimer's Speaks, Co-founder of Dementia Map and Conscious Caregiving with L & L, Radio Host, Author, Keynoter & Trainer, Recognized by Oprah, Maria Shriver, Sharecare, AARP MN
5 年Love this! ?
Founder, Apex AI Technologies
5 年With stories like the following being reported, we need more compassion in the health field. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/first-person/2019/3/13/18262481/robot-doctor-remote-telepresence-care-terminal-patient
Customer Experience - Communications - Project Management
5 年Plan to attend the next one. Please keep me on your list :)