I overheard my husband speaking to my children, explaining to them why I had to work the weekend and why I had to miss yet another event. He said, “Your mother’s work is that of one of the last remaining noble professions. She goes to work to help people.”.

Healthcare is a noble profession. One could say that it is more a calling than a profession. It requires us, when we are operating at our best, to bring our whole selves into the space. In order to do this, this space needs to be protected.

This work is cognitively demanding, both in a linear way, pulling facts and hard knowledge together, as well as from more of an intuitive standpoint. There are times when abandoning the facts and following a feeling is the exact thing to lead one to the correct answer, because a well-trained, experienced subconscious brain has intelligence that surpasses linear computer-like thought.

This work is emotionally demanding in an obvious way; we deal with the rough parts of humanity: death, life, fear and pain. We are highly dependent upon one another as a team, which can be stressful in its own way, particularly when there is often not enough engagement and few resources. It is also emotionally demanding to be all things to everyone (patients, administration, insurance companies, government). We have numerous competing expectations, the stress of these things is less obvious, but it is wearing.

In its current state, healthcare is tugging at the people working within healthcare. Those on the outside are pulling us in exact opposite directions and we are breaking. Burnout, dis-engagement, early retirement and suicide statistics corroborate this.

I believe that healthcare and those that work within it requires protection. We are currently too exposed to effectively live into our purpose. We need physical and psychological protection to access the wounds within ourselves that are the very source of empathy. We need time and space to form relationship with patients and with each other, because this is a prerequisite for a healthy, healing environment. What we know: health is improved when we feel seen and cared for. We can try to create an illusion where this is done with a quick visit or we can cultivate cultures where care is a central value, both for the clinician and the patient and their family. There should be an encouragement in both word and action for wholistic care for the humans involved in healthcare, both clinicians and patients.

If the numbers, the productivity and the dollars are monitored to the exclusion of those things that get at the very purpose of what we do; we are missing the whole point. We end up negating our vary purpose as the system rewards for pushing patients through the system, rather than taking time to listen carefully and taking time to investigate problems with curiosity.

The work of those in healthcare has been translated to a product and this does not adequately capture the complexity and difficulty of the job we do. This framework does not adequately capture the important impact of this work on other people’s lives. We end up diminished in the process, both patients and caregivers. We end up diminishing our collective worth and humanity. We are not a simple product. A hospital is not a hotel, nor is it a factory. It is more important. We are dealing with life, death and quality of our lives.

I have a vision for a more expansive system that embraces humanity. I think that one way through to this is to use the wisdom of behavioral sciences, as this is an existing framework to study human behavior. We should be asking questions like, “How do we promote engagement?” (rather than becoming frustrated with individuals for being disengaged). We should encourage teamwork and collaboration and consider what procedures and policies reward people for this. We know that placing people in competition has an quick effect on productivity, however it is not sustained and only gets a group so far. A collaborative model is more productive over time and the effect is sustainable.

Social Psychology has studied what effects altruism, compassion, and empathy. There are studies about what environments are needed for complex thought and decision-making. Studies have revealed that some more direct approaches are less effective than working with indirect unforeseen associated factors for behaviors we would like to encourage. We should be taking advantage of this wisdom in order to lean further into our purpose. We should be careful to define our highest values and then use caution to be consistent with procedures and policies that promote these values in action.

This is an investigation of all of this. How can we take the wisdom of behavioral science to solve some of the human problems within healthcare today?