The Role of Doctors Is Changing Forever | The New Yorker

The medical profession of the twentieth century was a hegemon; today, it is a regional power. When a hegemon loses status, it can take a few paths. It can aim for restoration—bringing back the empire—which in this case would probably focus on gatekeeping. It can retreat, which might mean abdicating medicine’s broad public role, perhaps in favor of a narrow focus on earnings and technical skills. The last—and, in my view, the best—path is reinvention. Doctors can remake their profession by embracing the multi-polar medical landscape they now inhabit, and by acting as a kind of system stabilizer: working with other powers to help shape rules, norms, and relationships. A superpower may act as though it can stand alone, but middle powers know the value of diplomacy and coalition-building.