If Knowledge is Power, Then Knowing What We Don’t Know is Wisdom

If Knowledge is Power, Then Knowing What We Don’t Know is Wisdom

In the book “Think Again,” Adam Grant explains that it pays to change your mind in a constantly changing world. Let go of knowledge and opinions that are no longer serving you well.

We often prefer to hang on to old views over the difficulty of grappling with new ones. There are deeper forces behind our resistance to rethinking. It requires us to admit that the facts may have changed, that what was once right may now be wrong. Reconsidering something we believe deeply can threaten our identities, making it feel like we’re losing a part of ourselves.

Between 1990 and 1995, twenty-three wildland firefighters perished trying to outrace fires uphill, even though dropping their heavy equipment could have made the difference between life and death. “Most would have lived had they simply dropped their gear and run for safety,” one expert wrote.

With his team of smokejumpers, Wagner Dodge landed near the top of Mann Gulch in 1949 to extinguish a forest fire started by lightning the day before. When they realized that fire was advancing at them rapidly, it was time to shift gears from fight to flight; Dodge immediately turned the crew around to run back up the slope. Dodge did something that baffled his team. Instead of trying to outrun the fire, he stopped and bent over. He took out a matchbook, started lighting matches, and threw them into the grass before him. Dodge devised a survival strategy: building an escape fire. By burning the grass ahead of him, he cleared the area of fuel for the wildfire to feed on. He poured water from his canteen onto his handkerchief, covered his mouth with it, and lay facedown in the charred area for fifteen minutes. As the wildfire raged directly above him, he survived in the oxygen close to the ground. Tragically, twelve of the smokejumpers perished.

We learn more from people who challenge our thought processes than those who affirm our conclusions.

In other news:

This week your MSSNY leaders met with the Chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee to thank the Assembly for recommending that the Part W Budget proposals to greatly expand the scope of practice of various non-physicians in the State Budget be excluded from the State Budget.  Please urge your Assemblymembers and Senators to make sure it stays out of the final Budget under negotiation by clicking here. And I hope you were able to listen to the MSSNY scope of practice ads that ran on radio stations throughout the state.

We are just two weeks away from our 2023 House of Delegates meeting. I am so looking forward to meeting in person and having robust debates about the issues that are important to our patients and our fellow physicians.

Wishing everyone peace and happiness as we celebrate: Happy Passover, Good Friday, Easter, Mahavir Jayanti, Ram Navami, Navaratri, and Ramadan.