Symptoms of academentia

A new study has revealed that approximately 10% of U.S. adults 65 years old and older have dementia, and 22% have mild cognitive impairment.?

During a recent webinar, a participant mentioned his experience working with some suffering from academentia. The keen observer may be familiar with the term?Managerialism. Yet a more recent concept is that of?Academentia. The term “Academentia” combines “academia” (post-secondary education) with “dementia” (progressive impairments to memory, thinking and behaviour which negatively impacts on a person’s ability to function). In short, Academentia describes a state of organizational insanity in which academics can no longer function as scholars.

Here are some of the symptoms:

• Memory loss, which is usually noticed by someone else In many instances, this is manifested by forgetting who graduates and trainees are supposed to serve and the evolving ways they must learn to do so. Here is how doctors and patients can win the 4th industrial revolution. The medical establishment insists on forgetting that medicine is a business. Regardless of who pays, like any professional service business, it always has been and always will be. Ignoring that reality is just one of many self inflicted wounds that leave physicians unprepared to take advantage of opportunities to thrive and leave them at the mercy of employers, because "I didn't go to medical school to be an entrepreneur".
• Difficulty communicating or finding words. Examples include innovation silos, not invented here syndrome, the lack of a coherent vision or misaligned strategic objectives.
• Difficulty with visual and spatial abilities, such as getting lost while driving. Many medical schools have lost their way and the result has been graduates drowning in debt with an uncertain future and income potential.
• Difficulty reasoning or problem-solving. Here are the problems confronting medical schools.
• Difficulty handling complex tasks, like balancing the missions of patient care, research, education and community service with the threats of declining revenues. Sickcare is a wicked problem.
• Difficulty with planning and organizing Here are some recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of craniorectal inversion syndrome
• Difficulty with coordination and motor functions like moving from sickcare to healthcare, from fee for service to value based care and addressing system inequities and low value, high cost care.
• Confusion and disorientation about how to create entrepreneurial medical schools

Here are some recent advances in managing the symptoms and slowing the progression of academentia and combating academentia in the teaching faculty.

Perhaps, some day soon, we will see a treatment, perhaps a vaccine, for academentia that will prevent it. Unfortunately, many will refuse it because they don't want to be unmasked.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs