Do yourself a favor and watch this keynote address given at a medical conference in Southern California by Dr. Donald M. Berwick, President and CEO for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)… It won't take long... 15 minutes at the most. I promise it will inspire you.
About six minutes into the video, Dr. Berwick redelivers his graduation address to the Yale Medical School class of 2010. Physicians nurses, health care workers, anyone who has been very ill, or loved someone who has been very ill, should watch this video. If you prefer to read it - you can find the text here.
His remarks are focused around an email he got from a woman, Mrs. Gruzenski, who wrote to him advocating for an administrative change to hospital visiting hour policies. Her email explained the cruelty of being strictly limited to only seeing her husband, Dr. Gruzenski, to four times a day for 30 minutes during the last few days of his life in the ICU.