ABSTRACT
The core values of the healthcare professions also have deep roots. For the medical profession, some of these go back to ancient physicians like Hippocrates and Maimonides. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It is putting oneself in another person’s place. As the saying goes, it is walking in their shoes, especially when those shoes are not a natural fit. Wisdom goes beyond being intelligent or knowledgeable, to being able to discern what is right and true. Solomon was correct in believing that a leader needs this. Nitin Nohria, Dean of Harvard Business School, noted that most of us are not as virtuous as we think, a condition he describes as “moral overconfidence”. While he primarily focused on well-known lapses of values in business, there are numerous examples of lapses in healthcare, from opioid marketing, EpiPen and insulin costs, Medicaid and Medicare fraud, and research misconduct.
