Remembering what it means to care

In a recent piece, Robert Reich described the future of work in terms of three categories: making, thinking, and caring. Manufacturing jobs—once the backbone of the American middle class—have largely been replaced by automation. What remains, he argues, is a split between high-paid “thinking” jobs and lower-paid “caring” jobs.

Doctors, by this framework, fall into the “thinking” category. And on paper, that’s true. Much of modern medicine has placed physicians primarily in the role of decision-makers—ordering tests, interpreting data, prescribing treatment plans. But when you look closely at the experience of being a doctor today, that shift has come at a cost.

As physicians, our role has become increasingly abstracted from the act of actually caring for people. We sit in front of screens, making rapid-fire decisions in a system designed to maximize our efficiency, not our time with patients. We are asked to function like machines, and then blamed for burning out when the work feels inhuman. Many of us entered medicine with a calling to heal and connect, yet find ourselves reduced to high-functioning chart reviewers and prescribers.

This shift is particularly troubling in an era where artificial intelligence is rapidly catching up to (and in some cases surpassing) our abilities to synthesize information, calculate risk, and even generate treatment plans. If physicians see ourselves only as decision-making machines, then AI will inevitably do our jobs faster, cheaper, and at scale.

But medicine is not just about thinking. At its best, it is about caring. It is about presence, listening, empathy, and the human connection that has always been at the heart of healing. The most profound part of being a doctor has never been the ability to order the right test—it is the ability to sit with someone in their vulnerability, to bear witness, to offer reassurance and guidance when things are uncertain.

If we want to thrive as physicians in the decades ahead, we must remember: we are the medicine. Our role cannot be reduced to just algorithms and protocols. What makes us irreplaceable is our capacity to care, not only to think.

At Marin Family Medicine, this philosophy is central to how we practice. We’ve chosen a model of care that makes room for the human side of medicine—where doctors and patients are not rushed, where conversations matter, and where relationships are the cornerstone of health. In a world increasingly driven by efficiency and automation, we believe the future of medicine lies in remembering what it means to be a physician who cares.