Sachin H. Jain: Being comfortable saying: “I don’t know” is paradoxically one of the most important ways we build trust with one another.

Quoting Sachin H. Jain, the President and CEO of SCAN Group & Health Plan, on LinkedIn:

“One of the greatest challenges to medicine and the healthcare industry is the demand for clinical certainty.
Anyone who has been clinically well-trained knows that the frequency of “it depends” far outstrips unambiguous clarity.

And rather than holding firm on a “it depends” or “we don’t know” or “we aren’t sure” we often try to give patients what they want: certainty.
Nowhere was this more on display during the height of the COVID pandemic when many “experts” delivered well-intentioned certainty in a time of grave ambiguity.

And rather than do what people hoped it would—deliver calm—it eroded trust in healthcare and public health as certainty became evident as facts and circumstances changed in real time.
Which brings me to a bigger realization…

Being comfortable saying: “I don’t know” is paradoxically one of the most important ways we build trust with one another.
Say it early, say it often…and, interestingly, it gives you the endearing quality that we crave most and few receive (cite: Billy Joel): honesty.”

Source: Sachin H. Jain/LinkedIn