MEDICINE & HEALTH
Reclaiming Humanity in US Medicine and Health Care
Medicine with Integrity, Care with Compassion
What this course is about
The title is a description, not a slogan. The compassion that drew so many people into medicine and health care can be used to revolutionize the way medicine and health care are practiced in the future. This course provides a blueprint.
Most people enter medicine and health care because they want to heal. Too often that calling now runs up against productivity quotas, prior authorizations, billing codes, and ownership structures built to maximize margins rather than outcomes. The trouble is not with the people who provide care. It is with the structural confines that control the way they work. These confines now define the punitive system that governs the way we practice medicine.
Unitive Justice offers a different architecture. Fourteen structures found in every punitive system are each paired with a unitive structure that can replace it. The movement from one structure to its counterpart is called an Arc. Together, the 14 Arcs form a map for system change — one that applies at every scale of US medicine and health care, from a single care team to a clinic, a hospital, a health system, a nation.
The course also examines something rarely noticed: every system carries its own language. It is the combination of structure and language that has sustained punitive justice for thousands of years. Unitive systems are based on a different combination of structure and language. In unitive systems, lovingkindness is foundational. We are being asked to make a conscious choice for change in the way we practice medicine and health care.
The course is offered in two levels, taken one level at a time. Level I has eleven lessons and covers Arcs 1 through 7. Because those in medicine and health care work directly with people who carry the effects of early adversity, Level I also includes a lesson on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and trauma-informed care. Level II has ten lessons and covers Arcs 8 through 14.
Who this course is for
This course is for those already practicing — physicians, physician assistants, nurses, therapists, social workers, technicians, chaplains, and clinic and hospital leaders — who feel their original calling slipping away under the pressures of how medicine and health care are now organized. It is equally for those being trained to enter the field: students in medical school, PA training, nursing school, medical-technician training, and chaplaincy. No prior knowledge of or experience with Unitive Justice is required. This powerful course does not single out any profession, institution, or individual for blame — it looks instead at the structures that shape everyone who works within them, and identifies the common ground and shared humanity on which a different kind of care can be established.
Two ways to take it: Study Group and Self-Directed
The course is available to study groups of 6 to 12 people led by a volunteer course leader, and as a self-directed course for individuals.
Course formats
✦ Volunteer-Led Study Group
✦ Self-Directed Study
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