Category: IT

There’s a story of Barry Diller, the famed Chairman of IAC, an internet behemoth with lots of succesful web properties in its very broad porftfolio of technology investments. Diller, now 69, was said to excessively, make use of a concept known as “reverse mentoring”. As the title suggests, the idea is that the typically younger, less experienced person, who has knowledge in a particula area, gives advice to the more senior person. This works amazingly well in a setup with an executive such as Barry Diller. Jack Welch, Management-Guru und CEO of GE is also known for using a reverse mentored decision process. He, the experience business person, with a track record in print publishing is being told that the company needs to move towards the internet to be sucessful. By asking the modern customer, the young, internet-savvy users, he gets insight into the market he wants to enter. It’s a great and simple concept as long as the senior to-be-mentored person shows humblness and willingness to learn from a less experienced person, which makes this more of a psychological obstacle, then an organizational one. Does reverse mentoring have its raison d’être also in medicine? Are you aware of a […]

Am I a physician or am I not? That’s how Shakespeare might have put it. This question seems trivial yet, at least for physicians reading this blog, the answer might not be as straightforward as it seems at first. For physicians having their own office or working in the hospital it’s pretty pretty pretty clear, as Larry David would have said. Working as a physician on a daily, clinical basis you are probably going to be treated as a physician and feel as a physician. If you have a dual degree in medicine and economics, such as an MBA, working for a pharmaceutical company, a case that is hardly unusual by the way, the situation becomes more complex. Clearly, you went to med school, worked in a hospital have your M.D. on your business card – but are you a physician and even more importantly do you feel like a physician? Whether you are a physician or you are not is not an easy question to answer. There is a really fine line in this whole game. Would you call somebody a physician who “just” finished Med School, but didn’t do residency? Or what if the person only did 3 […]