We need to start training more primary health providers and fewer

When Richard Lamm declared, “We need to start training more primary health providers and fewer specialists. We will never be able to control health care costs unless we challenge the over-emphasis on medical research, specialists and technology and put more emphasis on delivering good, everyday basic medicine to those who now have none,” he spoke as both a prophet and a reformer. His words are not merely about medicine; they are a call to return to balance, to restore humanity to a system that has become entranced by its own brilliance. In a world dazzled by technological marvels and the prestige of specialization, Lamm reminds us that the true heart of healing lies not in the gleaming towers of research hospitals, but in the humble primary care provider — the healer who listens, who knows the names of families, who walks among the people and tends to their daily afflictions. His message is both practical and spiritual: that medicine must serve life before it serves ambition.

The meaning of his words stretches far beyond economics. Lamm saw that the cost of health care was not merely a matter of numbers, but of priorities. The modern medical system, he observed, had become like a kingdom that builds golden temples while its villages crumble. Specialists and technologies — though magnificent in their achievements — too often serve the few, while the many suffer for lack of basic care. His call is not to reject progress, but to reorder our devotion, to remember that the strength of any civilization lies not in its elite healers, but in its ability to provide simple, accessible care to all. Just as a mighty tree depends on its roots rather than its highest branches, so must medicine be grounded in compassion before it reaches for discovery.

The origin of Lamm’s insight comes from his years as a public servant and thinker deeply concerned with social responsibility. As a former governor of Colorado, he watched the machinery of the health care system consume wealth and human energy while leaving countless people outside its reach. He saw hospitals filled with machines but communities left without clinics; he saw research celebrated while prevention was forgotten. His statement is both a critique and a lament — that the art of medicine, once devoted to the care of the person, has been seduced by the science of the disease. He calls upon us, like a wise elder of old, to bring medicine back to its sacred purpose: to heal the living, not just study the dying.

The ancients would have understood this truth well. In the temples of Asclepius in ancient Greece, healers served not only kings but shepherds, travelers, and the poor. They understood that the healer’s duty was to the whole community, not just to the powerful. Likewise, in the rural villages of China, the traditional physician was judged not by how many surgeries he performed, but by how many people stayed healthy under his care. There is an old saying in Chinese medicine: “The best doctor prevents disease.” This is the spirit of Lamm’s wisdom — that the greatest medicine is prevention, compassion, and accessibility, not the pursuit of endless advancement for its own sake. For a system that forgets its people in pursuit of prestige becomes sick at its very core.

There is a modern story that mirrors this truth — the story of Dr. Paul Farmer, who devoted his life to bringing primary health care to the poorest villages of Haiti and Rwanda. While the world’s wealthiest nations poured billions into high-tech treatments, Farmer built clinics in the mountains, trained local nurses, and provided medicine for diseases the world had forgotten. His work saved thousands not because of advanced technology, but because of simple, consistent, compassionate care. Farmer once said, “The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that’s wrong with the world.” In these words, we hear the echo of Lamm’s plea — that health care must begin with the poor, the ordinary, the forgotten, if it is to be just and whole.

Lamm’s warning also reveals a timeless truth about balance. Just as a civilization falls when it builds palaces but neglects its foundations, so does a health system collapse when it glorifies specialists but abandons generalists. Specialists are the artisans of the body — masters of detail and precision — yet without the generalist to guide the whole, their art becomes fragmented, like musicians playing without a conductor. A true system of healing requires both: the visionary and the caretaker, the researcher and the listener. But Lamm’s wisdom reminds us that the latter must come first, for the soul of medicine is relationship, not technology.

And so, the lesson is clear: Let medicine return to the people. Let every nation and every healer remember that the measure of progress is not the wealth of hospitals, but the wellness of its citizens. Train the healers who serve villages, not just those who serve institutions. Teach future physicians that every touch of the hand, every word of comfort, every wound cleaned in silence carries as much weight as the grandest discovery. For in the end, the true triumph of medicine is not found in laboratories or accolades, but in the quiet, everyday miracles of care, prevention, and respect for human life.

Thus, as Richard Lamm reminds us, the art of healing begins with the heart. Let us build systems that serve compassion before competition, humanity before hierarchy. Let us once again honor the healers who walk among us — the primary care providers, the nurses, the community doctors — for they are the true keepers of civilization’s health. And may we, like the ancients, remember that the greatest medicine is not the one that dazzles, but the one that reaches everyone.