Lucky Gunasekara from Singularity University’s FutureMed 2012 talks here about medical education and references ‘linear’ and ‘exponential’ problems. He suggests that we need to train the next generation for the exponential.
I’m not sure I agree.
Clay Christiensen and Jason Hwang in Innovator’s Prescription describe medicine working in solution shops and value-adding process (VAP) businesses. The solution shops are places where unstructured (exponential) problems are tackled. Obesity might fit here. VAP businesses tackle defined (linear) processes in an efficient way. Fixing hernias might be a good example.
While medicine’s big, exponential problems make dramatic video and keynote references, the future will call for solution shops and VAP operations in medicine.
We’ve got heady problems that need solutions, for sure. But we’ll always need folks to repair hernias.
These other videos from FutureMed 2012 are worth a peek.