Dr. Harris is particularly concerned about the introduction of this integrative approach into health care, and about the bridge that should be bult between the medical profession and the church (McKenna and Pugno, 2006, p. 148-149):
“I want doctors to incorporate this awareness into the treatment plans and care they offer. I want the church to be one of the best sources of legitimate information for people seeking health and wholeness. In church, we not only minister to the soul, we honor the body as well. As a Deacon, I’ll be ordained to serve, to bring the concerns of the world to the church, and to empower people in the church to use their gifts in service to the world. This is the bridge from head to heart to hands. A pitcher, basin, and towel (reminiscent of Christ’s washing the feet of his disciples) are the symbols of Deacons – they remind us that whoever would be great must be a servant.” [Reverend Pamela S. Harris, MD]
The garden that Drs. Harris, McKenna and Pugno envision would certainly be verdant and filled with multiple perspectives and practice. This is a garden of diversity and divergence. Verdant Green leaders look at the world and one’s place in this world from multiple perspectives. One of the benefits residing in this diversity of perspectives is the capacity to “think out of the box” (McKenna and Pugno, 2006, p. 251):
“I’m a fan of Clayton Christiansen’s ideas about disruptive innovation. I highly recommend both of his books – The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution. A professor at the Harvard School of Business, his theory describes how large, successful enterprises often are unable to successfully keep up with innovation, because most of their effort is on incremental changes requested by their demanding customer base. As a result, their products become ever more complex and expensive. This leaves room for tiny companies to do an end run around the larger business by producing products which are simpler, cheaper, and more in line with what the market as a whole, who can’t afford the sophisticated products of the large company, wants. I’m greatly oversimplifying an elegant business theory-but the bottom line in my opinion is that healthcare needs disruptive innovation to transform itself quickly. This requires that physician leaders learn how to think out-of-the-box, getting beyond the delivery paradigms we have been living with over the past 30 years.” [J. Peter Geerlofs, MD. Family Physician Chief Medical Officer, Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc.]
Diversity shows up in many ways. The Verdant Green leader enjoys engaging in a wide variety of relationships—both inside and outside medicine. They remain curious regarding the perspectives and practices of physicians working in other areas of medicine and might even encourage rotation of physicians between areas—which makes no sense to those physician leaders (like the often-quoted Dr., Durrie) who are more Ruby Red in their orientation (McKinna and Pugno, 2006, p. 81):
“It isn’t uncommon for healthcare organizations to rotate physicians through medical staff leadership roles every couple of years. Thus physicians end up in the role whether they’re good at it or not, whether they’re interested in it or not. That doesn’t make much sense to me.” [Daniel S. Durrie, MD, Ophthalmologist, President,, Durrie Vision Center]
Cross-cultural experiences are a source of great excitement rather than dread. There is often wide-ranging interest in books, music, theater and any other venue that offers something new and different regarding the human condition. To quote one of McKenna and Pugno’s (2006, p. 257) leaders:
“My advice to physicians who aspire to make leading contributions in healthcare? Read a lot! Especially early in your career. Many wonderful thought leaders have published some very good books and articles.” [Ronald N. Riner, MD, Cardiologist President, The Riner Group]
