Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboy Doctors
David Lawrence Looks at the Future of Primary Care
In a surprising introduction, David Lawrence, former CEO of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals, decided to focus on cowboys.
“The cowboy mythology suffuses many of the views about the doctor, and for the doctor, it suffuses many of our views about ourselves,” he said. Cowboys, Lawrence explained, are independent, brave, resourceful loners. Almost irascible. Think House, MD.
The audience at the Harmony Gold Theater on Sunset Boulevard listened attentively. Lawrence soon wove together these analogies, his personal anecdotes and diverse experiences within the health care system–both managerial and political–to illuminate a …
