Contrary to the Experts – The Experts Aren’t Always Right
My success, like that of many entrepreneurs, is built on challenging the experts – not relying on them. Our Founding Fathers weren’t expert politicians. Our captains of industry weren’t experts in their fields. Our best inventors weren’t experts. America and almost all of our achievements were built by a nation of amateurs, tinkerers and inventors constantly poking, prodding, testing and discarding what didn’t work until they eventually hit the magic formula for success.
In 1982, when I pioneered the field of legal nurse consulting, I challenged the experts. The whole concept of legal nurse consulting was contrary to what attorneys accepted as an industry standard. Typically, they relied on doctors to try to make sense of medical records. How crazy is that? As RNs, we know doctors don’t even read the medical records when they’re at work. So how could attorneys possibly be getting what they really needed? Not to mention the fact that physicians were charging way too much for their time and weren’t always giving the attorneys objective opinions (because doctors are way too protective of each other).
I had to go against the “experts” and educate attorneys that the registered nurse (RN) is the only healthcare provider who knows everything that is going on with the patient. We’re the ones with hands-on information, with face-to-face 24/7 contact with patients, and most important, the only healthcare provider who ever reads the entire medical record. As RNs, we not only have the expertise to uncover vital facts and key pieces of information that can make or break an attorney’s case, but we’re cost-effective too. As an added bonus, we bring our (highly developed) skills of critiquing other healthcare providers to the table. This ensures that we deliver an objective opinion.
Shortly after I started consulting with attorneys on the medical issues in their cases, I recognized exactly how widespread the need for nurses in the legal arena really was. My next step was to begin training other nurses on how to consult with attorneys too. Now I had two growing businesses in a field the experts said would never succeed. Today, over 6,000 CLNC® consultants are still proving those same experts wrong!
Contrary to what most people believe, it doesn’t take an Einstein to spawn brilliant ideas, and even Einstein wasn’t born an expert (just a genius). Experts and extraordinary people can and do wake up with dumb ideas while ordinary people can and do wake up with extraordinary ideas.
The reality is that there are very few Einsteins out there and a lot more ordinary people like you and me (some with Einstein hair though). Like I said, ordinary people wake up with ideas every day; some are brilliant ideas, some are ordinary ideas and some are just plain dumb. But even a small, ordinary idea can pay off huge when you have the courage to own it and take action on it.
In my company, I encourage everyone, expert or not, to speak up when they have a new concept and to verbalize their objections when they think something isn’t working. Sometimes the person who knows the least about the subject asks a question that helps us make the biggest breakthroughs. In fact, I always know we’re onto a truly innovative idea at LegalNurse.com when one of the experts says, “You can’t do that.”
You’ll advance your legal nurse consulting business faster by listening to non-experts as well as experts. The experts aren’t always right except in their own mind. If it weren’t for people who didn’t listen to the experts, there are a lot of the things that we take for granted today that wouldn’t exist because the experts said that they weren’t needed or nobody would buy them.
2 thoughts on “Contrary to the Experts – The Experts Aren’t Always Right”
An idea born from a tiny spark can ignite into a large flame of a great idea or even many ideas. Thank you Vickie for having the fortitude, in 1982, to create and offer a service that RNs can deliver to attorneys, and make a difference in the lives of people! I look forward to networking and meeting other CLNC® consultants in Nashville at the NACLNC® Conference and Las Vegas at the CLNC® 6-Day Certification Seminar and learning from their ideas!
I don’t know how you do it but your blog seems to address most of my current issues and dilemmas as they occur. I think I’ll just stop losing so much sleep and zero in on the next blog. Thanks so much!
LegalNurse.com is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
The National Alliance of Certified Legal Nurse Consultants (NACLNC®) is the largest and oldest association of legal nurse consultants.
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*The opinions and statements made by Vickie Milazzo, the founder of Medical-Legal Consulting Institute, Inc. are based on her experiences and expertise, should not be applied beyond the specific context provided, and do not guaranty or project actual results. Vickie Milazzo is no longer involved in the operations or management of the business, but is involved as an independent education consultant.
An idea born from a tiny spark can ignite into a large flame of a great idea or even many ideas. Thank you Vickie for having the fortitude, in 1982, to create and offer a service that RNs can deliver to attorneys, and make a difference in the lives of people! I look forward to networking and meeting other CLNC® consultants in Nashville at the NACLNC® Conference and Las Vegas at the CLNC® 6-Day Certification Seminar and learning from their ideas!
I don’t know how you do it but your blog seems to address most of my current issues and dilemmas as they occur. I think I’ll just stop losing so much sleep and zero in on the next blog. Thanks so much!