A volume in I.S.C.E Book Series: Managing the Complex Series Editors
Kurt Richardson and Michael Lissack, ISCE Research In this volume, Hugo
Letiche tackles the all-important question, is there "care" in
healthcare? If, as Klaus Krippendorff (2006) argues, "meaning is a
structured space, a network of expected senses, a set of possibilities
.[that] emerges in the use of language," then within the healthcare
systems of today, the meaning of "care" has been defined to be the
eradication of a problem. We must recognize that patients do not wish to
regarded merely as a problem requiring eradication. Letiche is opposed
to the very idea that complexity reduction can address the humanity of
each individual healthcare situation. He argues that, through narratives
and through complexity based social theory, the complexity of each
individual situation must be transcended through mindful listening and
engaged dialogue. Letiche suggests that in the absence of such
mindfulness, the lack of time for true listening, and the inability of
providers and systems to allow for patients and family to engage in
dialogue lies both the roots of the problem and the potential for its
solution. If complexity theory has a role in the analysis understanding
and betterment of so