Blended Intelligence...

One of the terms that I came away from my visit to Memphis, TN, and my interaction with the Congregational Health Network (CHN) leadership is "blended intelligence". They define this as the intersection between those that understand pathophysiology and pathology (healthcare professionals) with those that understand life (pastors and congregants). Fascinating! It implies that those of us who have trained as health care clinicians have somehow lost our ability to recognize life - at least life as it is lived by those we claim to serve.

I have thought deeply about this blended intelligence and the implication on my own loss of recognition of life in the persons that I have served over most of the last 25 years. I find that there is more than a grain of truth in the words. I marvel at how my clinical training as a Doctor of Pharmacy student quickly focused me on solving problems and coming up with recommendations, rather than on listening and valuing the person I was treating. Seeing with "new vision" I'm surprised that I was so naive to think that just because I recommended the "right" medicine to someone, that they would value that recommendation and follow the prescription.

Not understanding that there are many decisions that go into why someone does or does not follow any direction, I blithely went through my days. I knew that physicians and other prescribers would take most of my recommendations, and that the better my relationship with them, the better my acceptance rate. I never paused to consider this from the perspective of my "patients" - or those I didn't work closely with on a daily basis. I never sought to blend my intelligence with those who my intelligence was acting upon. Egotism, hubris and blindness - guilty on all counts.

That's the beauty of the CHN system. It brings into relationship parts of the system that have been discounted and denied. It links through relationship building those parts of communities that are health assets - that are working to improve the health and well-being of the community. These may be faith communities, hair salons, grocery stores, soccer teams, and other social gathering spots - places where lives are valued and shared. Places where persons learn from one another.

Blended intelligence leads to wisdom. May we all this week seek to blend our intelligence with others and in so doing, become wiser.

Peace and grace,
Dan