Two are Better Than One: Valuing Medical Friendship

Abstract

[Extract] The post-exilic biblical voice of Kohelet above is echoed, even if unintentionally, by that of contemporary anthropologist, ethnologist, and social network analyst, John Edward Terrell, a Chicago Field Museum of Natural History curator.1 Both are exemplified by articles in this issue of Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal that were inspired by and composed in the wake of a visit almost a year ago (May 2014) by clinicians and scholars from the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota with Israeli colleagues on the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa. It was a day of formal conferences, informal conversations, a facility tour, and shared meals. It was also a day of friend-making, of creating “far-reaching social networks,” as “useful information” was exchanged and “complex abstract” ideas were debated. A mutuality of support was present among the American and Israeli caregivers and scientists who shared an immersion in the daily challenges of the professional practice of medical science in our different settings. Valuing medical friendship in this tangible way of dialogical teaching, debating, and personal presence, birthed the creative products of mind reflected in the articles of this issue written by the Mayo and Rambam experts.

Keywords

• collaboration
• medical collaboration
• research collaboration