“Traditional medical training may actually impede a physician’s ability to solve complex problems because it is based on vertical, linear and traditional thinking.”
Most physicians are clearly vertical thinkers. A vertical thinker is conditioned to look at the problem in a selective, analytical, and sequential manner. The longer a physician practices medicine, the more “vertical” his or her thinking methodology becomes… IMHO.
Innovation in the health care space clearly requires lateral thinking capabilities. As quoted from Wikipedia. Lateral thinking is solving problems through an indirect and creative approach, using reasoning that is not immediately obvious and involving ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic. The term was coined in 1967 by Edward de Bono.
Does it make sense that the tradition of elevating senior medical staff to leadership positions (based on seniority) within a health care system would/could lead to disruptive innovation, improved care, outreach, cost-effective treatments, etc???? I don’t think so…
Quite a dilemma…. we need to disrupt the typical hospital political hierarchy to create an environment for disruptive innovation across the system… hmmm, where to begin?
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I look on lateral, combined with vertical, thinking as just proper thinking. Louis Armstrong said: “There are two kinds of music…..I play the good kind.” Combining lateral and vertical thinking is proper thinking.
In order to cut costs and improve treatment let’s look at what doesn’t work and then at what does.
Fee-for service medicine has, in many cases, caused unnecessary procedures and huge amounts of money wasted.
The Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic are examples of what works and, thus, are a good starting point.
Jon Jacobs
Amateur Philosopher and R.N.
Cambridge Maryland
thanks for your thoughts Jon… I appreciate you stopping by!
Howard Luks
Lateral thinking in medicine is very rare and doctors are progressively vertical thinkers. In fact medicine needs people like you who think laterally and out of the box. The vertical thinking trait of a medical student is often suppressed as he/she becomes a doctor. I appreciate your article and efforts on lateral thinking. I have made some attempts on lateral thinking and it was published as an e book ,”Eye doctor out of the box ” ISBN 9781301878284. through smashwords.