First, take out all the doctors

I stumbled onto this the other day (when zooming down the rabbit hole that is the great Internet.) In one of the talks I do about the Integrative Law Movement, I talk about the parallels between what is happening in law and what is happening in medicine. I decided to do the same experiment with this paragraph as I did with another piece of writing some years back. The experiment is to replace the terms “doctor” and “patient” with “lawyer” and “client” and see if it captures what is happening in law. So here goes

Lissa Rankin, a doctor in the US who runs training programs for doctors in Whole Health Medicine wrote this:

“This article about how doctors rarely know their patients anymore makes me realize that this is part of why doctors get burned out- because they're not getting nourished by the intimacy of having a front row seat on life and death with patients they actually know. Knowing your patients feeds your heart. When you care about what happens to them, when you know if they're getting better or trending towards death, when you are able to give your love, even if you have no other treatment to give- you are sustained by your work. Doctors are missing out on so much of what used to nurture our souls.”

Here’s the word-replaced version:

“This article about how lawyers rarely know their clients anymore makes me realize that this is part of why lawyers get burned out- because they're not getting nourished by the intimacy of having a front row seat on life and death with clients they actually know. Knowing your clients feeds your heart. When you care about what happens to them, when you know if they're getting better or trending towards death, when you are able to give your love, even if you have no other treatment to give- you are sustained by your work. Lawyers are missing out on so much of what used to nurture our souls.”

Are you as moved by the symmetry as I am?

Let’s work together to birth new systems in law and medicine.

#lawandmedicine #integrativelaw #systemschange #lawyersaschangemakers