Make innovation your brand: Disruption strategies for young physicians
Medicine is a dynamic profession and physicians are at the forefront of health care innovation, consistently pushing boundaries of patient care and driving both industry and practice patterns forward. Despite being frontline caregivers and end users of medical technology, many physicians have a common misconception that innovation only takes place in the research lab or industry sponsored design studio with key opinion leader focus groups. The truth is, innovation in health care, like in other professions, can come from anywhere, and the young minds of newly minted physicians are especially primed for seeing ideas due to their uncanny ability to see the world differently.
As physicians progress through residency, fellowship and, ultimately, a high-powered clinical career, the success that they experience can sometimes be a hindrance to innovative ideas. Shawn Kanungo, a millennial innovation expert and author of The Bold Ones: Innovate and Disrupt to Become Truly Indispensable, describes how past successes amongst professionals in any industry frequently leads to an overreliance on previous practice patterns, which often leads to complacency in innovation. As professionals progress in their career, past successes define their identity, further hindering their innovative spirit. Understanding this concept may help you maintain a rookie mindset to come up with fresh ideas that usually are the most groundbreaking.
Innovation is not easy, but with determination, creativity and hard work, physicians can make a real impact on the industry. As the late Steve Jobs once said, “Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you.” Physicians, particularly younger ones, are especially primed to see innovative ideas sooner than others due to their rookie mindset and position at the forefront of health care innovation. Developing a disruption mindset and understanding the mechanics of execution can empower young physicians to bring about transformative change in the 21st century...Read more
Did your past successes lead to complacency in innovation?
