ABSTRACT
Academic medical centers with their schools of medicine, nursing, and allied health, many research facilities, and linkages to often huge medical centers with massive hospitals and a network of clinics are, some consider, among the most complex organizations on earth. Academic medical centers with their schools of medicine, nursing, and allied health, many research facilities, and linkages to often huge medical centers with massive hospitals and a network of clinics are, some consider, among the most complex organizations on earth. Many places of work are conceptually cut off from the rest of the world in order to maintain order, control, and productivity. The poem and discussion and the use of “front line” suggest fight and flight are an underlying shared unconscious defensive system that, while sometimes clearly present, is also often undiscussable. Healthcare institutions are specialized kinds of organizations, the work of which is closer to matters of life and death, sickness and healing, than are most organizations.
