In recent years we have seen trendy terms & concepts come and go. However, when “transparency” became entrenched in our day-to-day vocabulary, our day-to-day expectations and/or dealings with all businesses, it kind of felt different. It truly began feeling right, not to mention it felt hopeful when it came to any type of transactional accountability expectations between two parties.
Used in a transactional and transformative business new paradigm context, it seemed like we were moving in the right direction—one leveling the playing field. For a moment, it seemed transparency represented a new higher standard of corporate behavior sought, expected or even aspired by all parties involved—external and internal customers included. Particularly when seeking to build mature & respectful relationships among both stakeholders.
But in recent years, we the PA community have disappointingly witnessed 1st hand how difficult this process has been for some companies to engage in it, and adhere through their public promise to embrace transparency and reform.
The offending TV Networks
Unfortunately, I can not think of a more hypocritical & unprofessional example of this issue than the unflattering portrayal of the PA profession through the TV major Networks. For instance, one of the most recent derogatory media references was when our profession, was ridiculed in a satiric comedy show titled “Night life” aired on Feb 23rd, 2015. Essentially in this particular episode our education & training was utterly mischaracterized and trivialized as nothing more than “scut monkeys” pushing paperwork while trying to become physicians.
As if that wasn’t enough, on March 4th,2014 the PA profession was again disparaged on prime time TV on the O’Reilly Factor broadcast.
Similarly, he [ O’Reilly ] basically grossly misrepresented our rigorous PA training and the quality of our care-giving services by stating that we were akin to “Lenny”— a fictional community college graduate metaphor he used to compare our background against physicians. Contextually through his commentaries that night he implied the American healthcare consumer receives subpar care when care-giving services are provided by the Physician Assistants’ community.
To this author and the PA community this Fox News report was extremely offensive, denigrating if not to mention unfair and unbalanced. It makes one wonder what ever happened to fact checking when reporting not only on a professional group, but anything else too. Almost a la “Rolling Stone” magazine "Faux pas" before the days of cancel culture.
Along the same vein, even ousted Nancy Snydeman, MD former NBC New’s Chief Medical Editor misspoke about our background/role and our limited prescriptive abilities when caring for patients in a segment aired March 11th 2011. In her defense and unlike the other TV show producers, she later, tried to correct her statements on her Facebook page the next day. Somehow, it felt insincere.
So how did they slipped into these non-transparent behaviors?
Essentially, at the core of their mischaracterized broadcasted reports was the fact they did not bother to research nor present factually the issues. Instead, would have they sought a more balanced reporting, these probably would have shown/depicted a very more balanced group of highly schooled and skilled healthcare professionals: namely Physician Assistants community
Unfortunately, journalistic integrity is dead & all three networks choose to forego their journalistic responsibility and the end result was the grossly and inaccurately misrepresentation of a highly validated & well-respected, cost-effective care-givers professionals to the healthcare consumer.
Sadly, these examples illustrate the inherent egregious blunders each TV network committed and failed to apologize for their offensive and insulting aired transgressions. Generally speaking, these dismissive organizations not only lost value in the eyes of the PA community, but credibility as well tto this author. Clearly, not correcting the error will resonate negatively in our minds when it comes to TV network transparency. Thus, allowing their overt corporate arrogance to alienate us.
Isn’t “transparency” bi-directional?
If we as clinicians, are urged and expected to talk openly about our mistakes, foibles, and disclose harm done to patients and apologize promptly and sincerely, shouldn’t we expect the same from the business/TV industry? I /we would think so.
Therefore, doesn’t the PA profession deserve the same degree of respect, transparency in return?
So far, it does appear that being transparent to the healthcare consumer is not nearly as important as garnishing high TV ratings, even if it’s disparaging a venerable profession. Frankly, these examples illustrate the inherent egregious distasteful blunders each network committed while failing to apologize for their offensive and insulting transactional transgressions.
These transparency Faux Pas certainly open the doors to speculation and debate on some companies understanding of this expected new transactional behavioral accountability. In short, transparent relationships do matter if you expect to have a trusted engaged readership, and/or viewership in these cases.
In the world of the competitive diminishing market share & good customer relationship management, one thing is (and should be) key--transparency must be at the top of the list; anything less than that would be a problematic agenda for a TV producer and/or reporter…don’t you think?
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