How to become a Superspecialist?
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Marcel Levi |
TEDxAmsterdam
• November 2021
Biomedical knowledge, resulting in better treatment for patients, is accumulating at a breathtaking pace. However, this comes at a price. It is increasingly difficult for physicians to oversee all details of the entire spectrum of medicine. This has led to growing sub specialisation where doctors not only focus on one organ system but rather concentrate on only a tiny part of an organ or just a specific disease. In a world with rising numbers of elderly patients who often accumulate a variety of different conditions in various organs this model of a different doctor for each different condition is unsustainable and leads to unwanted fragmentation. There is nothing wrong with doctors knowing a lot of a specific part of medicine; However, the problem is that these highly specialized subspecialists often do not feel responsible or are not interested anymore in the rest of the patient. As a matter of fact, this subspecialization does not only occur in medicine but in a variety of professional disciplines. Marcel Levi, a professor of medicine, will propose how subspecialists can transform themselves to superspecialists. In this model, professionals are still highly skilled experts in their specific area but retain a generalist view on their patients (or customers) as a whole.