Creating Social Change

Elements of a Model for Social Change: This model allows us to identify which elements are already being fulfilled in our advocacy as Medical Whistleblowers , and identify gaps on which to concentrate resources.

The seven elements are -

1. Knowledge 2. Desire 3. Skills 4. Optimism 5. Facilitation 6. Stimulation 7. Reinforcement

1. Knowledge/awareness: The most obvious first step is that people must:

Know there is a problem; Know there is a practical, viable solution or alternative. This is

important. People are practical - they will always demand clear, simple, feasible road maps before they start a journey to a strange place.

Identify the personal costs of inaction and the benefits of action in concrete terms people can relate to (i.e. they 'own' the problem).

An awareness campaign aims

to harness people's judgment.

2. Desire - imagining yourself

in a different future

Change involves imagination.

People need to be able to

visualize a different, desirable,

future for themselves.

This is different to being able to recognize rational benefits.

Desire is an emotion, not a kind of knowledge. Advertising agencies

understand this well - they stimulate raw emotions like lust, fear, envy

and greed in order to create desire. However, desire can also be

created by evoking a future life which is more satisfying, healthy,

attractive and safe. To design a campaign that harnesses our

stakeholder’s imaginations, we will have to start by liberating our own.

3. Skills - knowing what to do

Being able to easily visualize the steps required to reach the goal. This is

not about emotion - it is purely rational.

People learn skills best by seeing someone else do them. The best way

to do this is to break the actions down into simple steps and use

illustrations to make visualization easy. It's amazing how many

campaigns for social change forget this element.

We, as Medical Whistleblowers, need to have those who have gained

particular skills mentor others in what they have learned. Each of us

has a unique personal history complete with a set of transferable skills.

4. Optimism (or confidence)

The belief that success is

probable or inevitable. The

repeated losses of legal case

appeals in the lower courts and

also the Supreme Court, as

well as lack of consistent

support from the US

Legislature, concurrent with lack of enforcement by the DOJ of criminal

intimidation and civil rights violations, has left our Medical

Whistleblower disheartened. Often I send words of encouragement to

just let them know that somebody cares and to keep their spirits up.

True successes are few and far between, so we need to create our own

successes. Strong political or community leadership is probably an

important ingredient of optimism.

5. Facilitation - having outside support

Most people are busy with limited resources and few choices. They may

need accessible services, infrastructure and support networks that

overcome practical obstacles to carrying out the action. There are real

and significant obstacles facing our Medical Whistleblowers, such as

financial insecurity, employment blacklisting, emotional trauma and

alienation from their professional and personal comrades, loss of

support from their religious faith community, loss of support from

family and friends, and the need to retool in a totally different

professional field.

If personal behavior change is blocked by real-world obstacles, then all

the communications on earth will be ineffective. The role of an

education strategy might therefore need to be expanded to involve the

establishment of new

services and

infrastructure. I believe

that this is an area

where a small cash

grant would be

essential. For example,

money to provide

monthly webinar

services which would

allow a flexible schedule with real time personal contact with Medical

Whistleblowers from all over the USA and potentially the world. Also a

website interface (perhaps provided by a collaboration with another

NGO) could be helpful which would rapidly allow our Medical

Whistleblowers to express their views to the press, the State and

Federal Legislature and to administrative governing bodies. We also

need to empower our Medical Whistleblowers by giving them back

their own self esteem through creative opportunities in employment,

successful partnerships with law enforcement, and entrepreneurial

enterprises to increase financial security.

6. Stimulation - having a kick-start

When faced with retaliation we tend to pull back into areas where we

feel secure. So in the immediate throes of Medical Whistleblower

retaliation trauma we often withdraw rather than move forward to

assert ourselves. This is a natural

consequence of what we have

experienced and so in order to

truly use the human potential of

this talented group of people we

must overcome a level of inertia

and maybe even fear. There are

two ways to compel people to act,

either by threat (either personal or direct) or by inspiring them.

Medical Whistleblowers are already motivated by direct and personal

threats on their professional and personal lives, so this is a strong

motivating force for them. But we must also endeavor to raise the

inspiration consciousness of our Medical Whistleblowers. The

inspirational happens in a collective context - based on our human

social instincts. So the stimulation to compel our Medical

Whistleblowers to take action and get involved could be an imminent

threat (like the loss of a job, loss of their home, threat to their medical

license, concern for patient abuse), a special offer or competition, or,

better still, some communally inspirational shared event which

galvanizes action (e.g. a telethon, a rally, a public meeting, a festival).

7. Feedback and reinforcement

We are all bombarded with a host of voices, situations and institutions

daily wishing to compel us to act, we tend to ignore many of these

messages. So effectively advocating for social change is about

continuous recruitment and reinforcement of messages - with regular

communications which report back to people on the success of their

efforts and the next steps which are expected of them. Many NGOs

(ACLU, Amnesty International, Sierra Club, Public Citizen) have learnt

this lesson and devote considerable resources to continuously feeding

success stories and updates to their contributors, as well as new calls

for support and action. Thus we need a much more robust system to

report back to our Medical Whistleblower shareholders in a meaningful

and timely way.

The importance of empowerment

Empowerment is the feeling of confidence that you can be a cause of

genuine change. In practice,

it's an elusive mixture of

many ingredients - like skills,

optimism, leadership, belief

and experience.

Empowerment can be built in

a social advocacy campaign

by maintaining a close

association with the Medical

Whistleblowers and Patient Advocates and the other stakeholders in

the community. Listening carefully to their needs and responding to

their requests. It is also important to give them a sense of ownership

and ability to direct the efforts of the Medical Whistleblower

leadership.

However empowerment is surprisingly fragile. It can easily be

destroyed by dishonesty or mixed motives. We in the Medical

Whistleblower group have experienced this first hand with the

hostilities that erupted within the Semmelweis Society International

this year and the drawn out lawsuit for control of the SSI financial

assets, name, and website.

Karma

Not many advocates for social change suffer from hubris because they

know their task is tough and there are few unequivocal success stories

out there. That's because real social change is not made by advocates.

It's made by history.

Sustained social

change is made by our

natural responses to

the inspired

communication of our

social leaders, the will

of the people that

leads to great

historical events and

circumstances. It's impossible to fabricate the inspirational factor of a

Dalai Lama, a Mahatma Gandhi, a Martin Luther King, or a Desmond

Tutu.

Those who wish to create meaningful social change need to be alert to,

and go with the social flow. Engineers and managers, however, often

don't appreciate this. They expect that they can engineer change - but

the truth is they can only influence changes which are already

occurring. It is much easier to direct the flow of change than it is to get

the ball rolling. Educators therefore need to be alert, flexible and

opportunistic for ways to connect their campaign to social shifts and

movements as they occur.

Conclusion

In conclusion, my message is that we

need an education strategy for

Medical Whistleblower that actually

works, as opposed to one that looks

good on paper. This educational plan

is likely to involve a lot more than

just communication techniques. We

need look forward and to think of the

long term goals and ensure that

necessary resources are available to

repeat and reinforce our messages.

If we really want to affect social change in how Medical Whistleblowers

are treated and how their allegations of Medial Fraud, Patient Abuse

and Neglect and Human Rights Violations are addressed, we must do

more than awareness communication. We must determine what

concrete changes in policy and protocol are necessary, but also what

changes in attitudes and beliefs. We must help people visualize new

futures by creating for them the context in which that new destiny can

be framed. But we also need to be mindful of the bricks and mortar

necessary for that new construction of protocols and actions. We need

to work with partners from other disciples, those with different skills

than we have as medical professionals. We will need legislators to help

change laws. We will need health and human services managers and

administrators to help implement the laws. We will need law

enforcement officials

and officers to enforce

the laws. We will need

politicians and

diplomats to provide

leadership and build

bridges of

communication

between diverse

groups. We need more

than medical

professionals who have suffered Bad Faith Peer Review and want to

right the wrongs done to them in their own lives. I wish in this first

National Medical Whistleblower Conference to create a sense of a

special inspirational event, an event which will provide us with the

opportunity to have meaningful face to face discussion of our goals for

social change.

Sincerely, Janette

Dr. Janet Parker, DVM, Executive Director, Medical Whistleblower

P.O. Box C, Lawrence, KS 66044 MedicalWhistleblower@gmail.com