Tracing our Professional Lineage

Years ago, I attended a gathering where the late family therapist Lynn Hoffman illustrated a colleague’s professional lineage by mapping out the influential figures in their career in a family tree format, like a genogram. Her friend and colleague Marcelo Pakman, a regular to these reunions, coined this exploration a “retroscope.”

On a rainy November afternoon, this reflection resonated with me as I listened to Stories of Primary Care, Sandy Blount’s interview series Pioneers of Integration, curated for the CFHA’s 30th anniversary. This series highlighted the rich tapestry of our community’s professional lineage—our “collective “retroscope.”

Cultivating Hidden Influences

During their 1970 seven-and-a-half-hour long conversation on race and identity, writer James Baldwin and anthropologist Margaret Mead reflected on how ancestry isn’t only a function of genealogy. While we cannot choose our genetic ancestors, we can cultivate our intellectual lineage, consciously selecting the ideas and paradigms from which we wish to work.

However, this legacy is not always built consciously or deliberately. Our professional influences might become subtly entangled in our professional identity through other influential figures acting as intermediaries or connectors. I experienced this listening to Sandy’s series and appreciate the series’ role in unveiling and preserving our integrated care legacy.

Becoming Seed Guardians

Indigenous peoples worldwide collect, preserve, and revive seeds to protect the traditional crops their ancestors grew. Protecting their ancestral heritage contributes to the world’s food diversity and can help us adapt to climate change. Chilean Indigenous Mapuche Delfin Toro says: “It’s like being seed guardians. We are rescuing seeds and knowledge from our ancestors, how they harvested, how they sowed, the dynamics of the moon, when to plant, and when to harvest. “

In the spirit of Indigenous communities that preserve their seeds for future generations and ignited by the trailblazers who entrusted us with their legacy, I collected ten thoughts from the pioneer interviews to carry into the new year, a year that holds the potential to shape our professional lives in unprecedent ways.

Preserving Future Crops

1. Shared Mental Models: Build shared models that function as bridges between disciplines and foster better collaboration. (Susan Mc Daniels)
2. Dialogue Across Disciplines: Shared dialogue has the power to enhance care and also provide us with a sense of strength and purpose that sustains us. (Larry Mauksch)
3. Competency is a Team Sport: Focusing on better understanding team dynamics is just as crucial as understanding family and group dynamics. (Bill Doherty)
4. United by Clinical Excellence: Clinicians, regardless of their disciplines, are united by their dedication to patient care—much like musicians are united by their musicianship, not their instruments. (CJ Peek)
5. No Wrong Patient: Thinking that every patient deserves our care reshapes our approach to treatment. (Kirk Strosahl)
6. Context Matters: Failing to understand our patients can be costly financially and impact the quality of care. (Mac Baird)
7. Self-reflective Systems: If an approach is not working, it might be time to reassess the system and us within it. (Sandy Blount)
8. The Critical Role of Training: Let’s not forget that we cannot expect someone to succeed without proper training and guidance. (Patti Robinson)
9. The Importance of Joy: Never overlook the joy in new endeavors—ours is not just an intellectual pursuit but a social and emotional one. (Michael Glenn)
10. Data-Driven Futures: It is essential to follow meaningful data, not to amass endless numbers but to acquire enough to understand the heartbeat of our work. (Patti Robinson)

As we embrace the coming year, let us be mindful architects of our lineage, choosing the influences and inspirations that will define not just who we are but who we will become.

Good Year to Us!