As a doctor who has worked in a dozen different hospitals over the past decade, I have really enjoyed meeting a broad range of experienced doctors and hearing their perspectives on how the practice of medicine has changed since the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.

I recall one conversation I had with a fine surgeon not so long ago, who began discussing with me the huge power shift that’s happened from doctors to administrators over the past 20 years.

He recounted to me an incident that occurred when he was a young surgeon, which perfectly illustrates this fact.

There was a patient care issue on one of the floors that had really angered him, when his patient wasn’t quite getting the care they needed.