“The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him… The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself… All progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw

The potential for many health innovations seem tremendous, yet why has there been such a reluctance and slowness to adopt them. The long awaited movie Avatar serves as a fitting metaphor for the health innovation agenda in many countries.

By all accounts Avatar’s director, James Cameron, had a vision of a cinematic masterpiece which by any standard was ambitious and risky. Making this project the more difficult was the missing technology and know-how to make it happen. It says a lot about the individuals involved in any long-term endeavour to stay the course in the face of uncertainty and adversity. Never more true is this of health innovation, which in the case of eHealth and biotechnology innovations involve significant capital investment and long development and validation times.

It takes vision, leadership and the willingness to commit to the process in the firm belief that something tremendous and worthwhile is being created. The question is whether some of these innovations are really worth the wait. Is the hype justified? Certainly for projects such as the movie Avatar the end result has been a triumph of the “unreasonable man”.

The conservatism in health care to embrace change and progress is well documented. It is almost as if progress happens inspite of the medical establishment. I believe the hammering of medical students and doctors in general to follow guidelines and well-worn algorithms under the guise of “evidence-based medicine” has its limitations when it comes to innovation. It never ceases to amaze me how we often choose the brightest and the best of the education system to enter medical schools around the world only to turn these bright minds into unthinking, uncreative automatons.

Of course no one wants a maverick clinician. However, once in awhile it is exactly these “maverick” clinicians that whilst taking fire from colleagues for years eventually discover a Nobel Prize winning breakthrough or continue to save lives when others have given up. Let’s not be naïve, not all “mavericks” are altruistic and misunderstood geniuses. However, not all of them are crackpots or dangerous rogues either. The question is how do we separate the “unreasonable man” from the “maverick”?

I believe the answer to this question in part lies in changing the culture. By encouraging all clinicians to undertake more teaching roles and engaging in research, creates a cultural norm of inquiry and valuing innovation. It is well known that groups lauded for their innovation, like Google and 3M, allow their employees time, resources and latitude to explore personal ideas. Why shouldn’t we do the same at the coalface of clinical medical practice?

Most clinicians are so bogged down in seeing the tsunami of patients and completing the ensuing paperwork that little time is devoted to reflection or creative pursuits. Building teaching and research into professional development is an ideal method of doing exactly this. I’m not talking about research in the esoteric, navel gazing sense as is sometimes associated with certain academia. I’m talking about formalised think-tanks of grassroots clinicians, within medicine and inter-professionally, grappling collectively with clinical conundrums, big picture challenges and having the latitude to explore potential solutions without being pilloried as misfits or worse still, criminals.

We need visionaries, we need leadership and we need courage to negotiate our way through this brave new world of health progress, never forgetting the centrality of the patient’s welfare in all that we do. However, let’s not ignore or forget the critically under-developed and under-appreciated resource of “unreasonable” people forming the “grassroots” of the healthcare industry. We will get more innovation and less angst if more was invested in nurturing this vastly untapped resource.