The KNN approaches care as more than just a noun or something to be delivered. The work of Virginia Held, Milton Mayeroff and Joan Tronto helps us conceptualize caring as a blend of practices, dispositions and motivations—all aimed at making sure that individuals and populations grow, develop and flourish as best they can. Understood in this sense, caring encompasses aspects like attentiveness, responsibility, competency, responsiveness and engagement/citizenship.
Simply studying or working in a healthcare space doesn’t inherently enable this type of care; instead, it must be approached consciously. Ultimately, completeness of care fosters human connection and promotes the KNN’s goal of human flourishing.
KNN medical students’ experiences reinforce the importance of prioritizing complete care. For instance, Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine student Adam Howard has found competent care requires a certain type of responsibility, authenticity and full understanding of patient needs and expectations.
Clearly, a competent healthcare provider, teacher, or leader must understand the role that race plays (consciously or otherwise) in the lives of those they serve. To separate the biopsychosocial health of an individual from what seems ‘relevant’ to a single episode of disquiet is folly. We are constantly all that we are, not one part of ourselves at a time. To engage with human beings, we must engage with their entirety, lest we inadvertently enact less-than-humane treatment.
Race is an indelible part of the human experience. All that makes us individual makes us human, and to deny any aspect of that is not sensible. In any position of leadership we occupy we must have a multimodal approach towards moving away from bigotry and towards love. We must start within ourselves by demonstrating our best, championing all that makes us unique and, in so doing, trailblazing a bright road for those who come after us.
The effects of racial ignorance are often under-recognized. Too many hearts and minds are ravaged by toxic stress and feelings of persecution imposed by systemic disrespect for human dignity. Healing these wounds begins with personal excellence, but efforts must transcend the personal to include thoughtful advocacy. It requires that we espouse what is right and decry what is unacceptable in all aspects of our lives. The fear and irreverence which propagates injustice must be replaced with understanding and thoughtful, empathic discourse.
For weal or for woe it falls to us who live amidst such galvanizing turmoil to revolutionize the way in which we interact with one another as human beings—to rigorously establish being humane as a defining feature of being human.
