Courage to Bring Change

The other day, I visited Arlington National Cemetery.  There are rows and rows of white tombstones, 400,000 graves in all.  It’s daunting.  From atop the hill at Arlington House, in almost every direction, the endless rows of white can be seen.

Each year 440,000 Americans needlessly die as a result of medical harm.  They could fill an Arlington National Cemetery – every year!   They did not sign on to do something with the understanding that medical harm was an accepted risk.

We can honor them by working together to change this, and many of us are.  We should think about the words of Robert Kennedy, found on the wall of his memorial at Arlington.   Although they were spoken almost 50 years ago, well before the patient safety movement took shape, we can think of them in terms of patient safety and use them as inspiration as we go forward and engage in conversations and actions to end the needless deaths that result from medical harm.

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance.”

Robert F. Kennedy, South Africa, 1966