Using your profession to affect lives beyond typical daily encounters is a theme taken from the best-selling book Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie.1 In his book, Mycoskie describes his journey as he developed the successful yet highly charitable business of TOMS shoes. He talks primarily about the value of being good at and loving your day-to-day work while seeking to make a larger change in the world at the same time.
As physicians, we are privileged to receive daily gratification in the successful treatment of our patients, and there is no doubt they in turn value our care. Beyond those daily and direct interactions, however, anesthesiologists are uniquely positioned to be part of the larger conversation on health care delivery. According to a Harris Poll measuring trust in different professionals to give advice, doctors are trusted “completely” by the greatest number of U.S. adults.2 When we...
