Most of the breakthroughs in medical history are rooted in the willingness to challenge assumptions…to dare to kill the sacred cows.
Assumptions like:
- Doctors could never unwittingly kill their patients (Ignaz Semmelweiss on hand washing)
- Bacteria can’t survive the acidity of the stomach (Barry Marshall and Robin Warren on H.pylori)
- Babies can only grow inside the womb (Robert G Edwards on IVF)
- Women can’t menstruate and think at the same time (Mary Putnam Jacobi vs Professor Edward Clarke)
- Viruses can’t cause cancer (Peyton Rous on Rous Sarcoma Virus)
- Diseases can’t be spread by a simple protein (Stanley Prussiner on prions)
- You are the average of your parents traits aka “blended inheritance” (Gregor Mendel on heredity)
- The immune system plays no role in Cancer (James Allison on Tumour immunology)
- Being repeatedly kicked and beaten in the head causes brain damage (Bennet Omalu on chronic traumatic encephalopathy)
These were assumptions supported, championed and staunchly defended by the medical establishment of the time.
You think you can treat cancer by just removing this negative signal on a T-cell?
“Everyone was against me. But I knew I was right.”
“There are times I wish I never looked at [former professional NFL player] Mike Webster’s brain. It has dragged me into worldly affairs I do not want to be associated with. Human meanness, wickedness, and selfishness. People trying to cover up, to control how information is released. I started this not knowing I was walking into a minefield. That is my only regret.”
These were some of the responses and reactions to the act of someone challenging a deeply held assumption.
A sacred cow.
This is a common pattern throughout human history.
Something is crazy, until it isn’t.
We ignore the new thing, resist the new thing, and then we celebrate the new thing.
Given that we know this, then it seems as if the limiting factor for our next breakthroughs isn’t knowledge, or technology or money…but ridicule.
Ridicule is the rate limiting step of your next breakthrough.
Being willing to be made fun of, have your mistakes pointed out and be opposed at every turn is the cost of entry for discovering a breakthrough.
Being willing to ask silly questions is at the heart of challenging assumptions, in order to discover what others have overlooked.
So rather than train Medics in how to milk our sacred cows, perhaps we need to empower them to try and kill them instead.
Those that survive the onslaught of intellectual challenge will be all the better for it.
And those that die will act as a beacon to show us what we didn’t know we were overlooking.
Your boss may have hired you to milk the sacred cows, to simply maintain the status quo.
But your patients, your community, your great great grandkids and your true potential need you to try and kill them as well.
HT: Gabriel Miller