SQ
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Hospital politics can be fatal.
In 1846, Hungarian physician Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1) was appointed as assistant to Professor Johann Klein in the First Obstetrical Clinic of the Vienna General Hospital. His duties were to examine patients prior to the morning ward round, supervise difficult deliveries, and teach students (kind of like a chief resident or house officer).
There was also a Second Obstetrical Clinic at the hospital. To Semmelweis' dismay, the maternal mortality rate in the First Clinic (his clinic) was 10%, whereas in the Second Clinic, it was only 4%. Most of the maternal mortality in both clinics was due to puerperal fever (bacterial infection of the female reproductive tract). Given that the two clinics used the same techniques and were located in the same place, this made no sense to Semmelweis; he sought an explanation.
Inspired, Semmelweis systematically eliminated all potential possibilities, and by end of this the only difference he could discern was that the First Clinic was reserved for instruction of medical students, whereas the Second Clinic instructed student midwives. Following an autopsy, the doctors and medical students would go straight to examining patients, whereas the student midwives had no autopsy instruction, so nobody there had any contact with corpses. Semmelweis postulated that the doctors and medical students must have been carrying "cadaverous particles" on their hands (the germ theory was not yet fully developed) from the autopsy to the examination room. Suspecting a link between cadaverous contamination and puerperal fever, he enforced hand-washing with chlorinated lime for all personnel after doing autopsy work, and as a result, mortality in the First Clinic dropped by 90%.
Semmelweis' discovery that cleanliness resulted in lower mortality rates, was - and this may (or may not) seem amazing today - largely ignored, rejected, or ridiculed by the medical community. Semmelweis couldn't believe that his colleagues were so blind to such an obvious truth. He couldn't handle it, couldn't adjust; he went on an all-out assault against the medical establishment, writing disrespectful and angry letters to prominent European obstetricians, sometimes calling them ignoramuses, or irresponsible murderers.
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Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis. |
However, the main impediment to the spread of Semmelweis' theory was his own head of department, Professor Klein, a conservative gentleman who wanted his doctors to adhere to the medical orthodoxies established by previous medical practice. Klein believed that Semmelweis was an inexperienced radical, and a tense political battle followed, in which Semmelweis and Klein argued incessantly over his theory, with Klein's fury climaxing when he and his colleagues were branded irresponsible murderers. As such, Klein refused to renew Semmelweis' assistantship, and the latter left for Vienna without so much as a goodbye to his remaining friends and allies.
Semmelweis renewed his policies in Budapest, cutting infection down yet again, but he continued to focus on the "obviousness" of his theory rather than try to convince others of it; he didn't have the time to show these unbelievers the truth. He refused to publish papers, refused to back up his theory with data. Finally, in 1860, he wrote a book explaining his ideas in full, but it was a hopelessly convoluted diatribe aimed more at denouncing his short-sighted colleagues than at any earnest attempt to explain the theory. It goes without saying that the book was not received well.
As the years rolled on, Semmelweis' behaviour became more erratic. He became absentminded and depressed, and steered every conversation towards his theory. In 1865, he was committed to a mental institution, and when he realized what was happening tried to leave, but the guards beat him, confined him to a dark cell, and he died two weeks later, aged 47, of gangrene.
Harvey's Approach
It is unfortunate that Semmelweis did not adopt the approach of a colleague who lived over two centuries before him.
Ever since he was a medical student in 1602, the English physician William Harvey (2) had doubted the prevailing theory on the function of the heart. In medical school, the 1400-year old teachings of the Greek physician Galen were still taught, which stated that blood was "manufactured" in the liver and heart and flowed slowly from each to the various parts of the body, whereupon it was consumed; it did not flow back.
Harvey pondered this for years, a time during which his career prospered, culminating in an appointment as Royal Physician to King James I. By 1618, he had come up with an alternative theory, that blood did not flow slowly but rapidly throughout the body, with the heart acting as a pump, and it circulated continually, flowing back to the heart.
Like Semmelweis, Harvey had no direct way of verifying his theory, as studying live human hearts was forbidden and the only way open to him was to study live animals or human corpses. He ran controlled experiments, but he took his time, suspecting that his theory would stir up enmity (which he was not interested in doing). Some of his experiments were indirect - for example, he showed in experiments on serpents and fish that when he tied off the veins the heart became empty, and when he did the same to the arteries, it swelled up.
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William Harvey. |
Unlike Semmelweis, who simply enforced his policies onto others - medical establishment be damned - Harvey instead chose to focus on building up the evidence through his experiments, and convincing his colleagues by involving them in projects and eliciting their opinions. Methodically, Harvey produced the data. Slowly, he won them over. Finally, in 1628 when he felt he had enough data and support, Harvey published a relatively short book explaining his theory. It created quite a stir, with considerable opposition coming from older physicians, who could not reconcile themselves to such a challenge to their idea of anatomy, and Harvey's reputation and practice suffered for it. Numerous publications came out against his theory, but unlike Semmelweis and his angry retorts, Harvey remained mostly silent. Occasionally, a particular attack from an eminent physician earned a response from Harvey, but it was a polite response, not a vindictive one. It took over 20 years for Harvey's book to become accepted, but given the massive amount of evidence he had accumulated over the years, it did.
As the years rolled on, Harvey retired from practice and spent his days reading general literature. Several attempts were made to bring him back into the working world, but Harvey's response was this:
"Would you be the man who should recommend me to quit the peaceful haven where I now pass my life and launch again upon the faithless sea? You know full well what a storm my former lucubrations raised. Much better is it oftentimes to grow wise at home and in private, than by publishing what you have amassed with infinite labour, to stir up tempests that may rob you of peace and quiet for the rest of your days."
In 1657, when he died relatively peacefully at the age of 79 from a stroke, Harvey's theory had become an accepted part of medical doctrine and practice.
On Social Intelligence
Semmelweis and Harvey each faced a similar scenario - each of them believed in a theory that was ultimately shown to be correct, but at the time, the science had not yet caught up, so the theory could not be directly proven. As such, it was up to Semmelweis and Harvey to prove the theories themselves, while simultaneously enduring a heavy backlash from the mainstream medical establishment.
However, while the scenarios were similar, each approached it in an entirely different manner. Semmelweis rushed to emphasize the obvious truth of his theory, expecting that truth alone to shine through and show all others the errors of their ways; he did not anticipate the tenacity to which many of his colleagues clung to their out-dated beliefs. Thus, when his theory was attacked, Semmelweis simply reacted, bluntly responding in kind, but in doing so he alienated himself - and his ideas - from his most reputable (not to mention powerful) colleagues. In contrast, Harvey patiently acquired facts to prove the truth of this theory, and convinced as many colleagues as he could along the way; he correctly predicted that many of them, particularly the older ones, would cling to out-dated notions. Thus, when his theory was attacked, Harvey simply let his work do the talking, politely responding when it was deemed necessary, and in doing so, maintained his reputation, and his ideas, such that both weathered the storm.
The difference between Semmelweis and Harvey may have been in their social intelligence quotient, or SQ, (3) defined by United States psychologist Edward Thorndike in 1920 as "the ability to understand and manage men and women and boys and girls, to act wisely in human relations" (4) - in other words, to act appropriately for successful social conduct. SQ is somewhat different from the more familiar intelligence quotient, or IQ, which tests things like abstract reasoning and mathematical abilities, but neglects things like creativity and social intelligence.
It seems possible that given the similar situation in which Semmelweis and Harvey found themselves, the difference in outcome may have been due to differences in SQ. Semmelweis either could not - or cared not to - predict the negative reception his theory instilled in many of his colleagues. In contrast, Harvey both predicted a negative reception, and cared about it, and as such he was able to survive it; his SQ was up to the challenge.
True general intelligence rests on the brain predicting the outcome of any situation that the world presents to it. Some of those situations may be abstract and mathematical, but many of them will be primarily social. SQ is often deemed unimportant compared to IQ, but it's just as important; it could even be argued as more important. This test may give you an indication of your SQ:
Take the test result with a grain of salt, but remember this. Sometimes, a brilliant idea is not enough. Sometimes, its execution is not enough. Sometimes, the execution of an idea also requires that a high degree of forethought be given to the social context of its proposal, or it will be slaughtered - at least temporarily - and you with it.
Which, just as it was for Semmelweis, may not be so temporary.
Solace.
References
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis.
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Harvey.
(3) Greene R. 2012. Mastery. Viking Adult.
(4) Thorndike EL. 1920. Intelligence and its use. Harper's Magazine.
