Like many people around the world, for nearly six weeks, my schedule revolved around the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

I watched matches whenever I could. Before work, after work, while eating, on my phone between commitments. I even subscribed to another streaming service just so I wouldn’t miss a game when I wasn’t near a television. Now that the tournament is over, I keep finding myself reaching for the remote looking for something to fill the void.

At first, I thought I simply missed soccer, which I love, but I soon realized I was missing something much bigger.

I miss watching human beings stretch the limits of what they’re capable of becoming.

Every major sporting event, from the World Cup, the Olympics, and the Super Bowl to the NBA Playoffs and countless others, introduces the world to new heroes. Players who were virtually unknown just weeks earlier, or who had only niche followings in the U.S., become household names overnight. Teams and small nations that few expected to contend suddenly capture the hearts of millions around the world.

We are drawn to these stories because they remind us of something fundamentally hopeful. Human potential is often far greater than we realize when people are given the opportunity to demonstrate it.

For more than eight years, I’ve worked in event medicine alongside my career as an emergency physician focused on physician development and organizational excellence. While many people think of event medicine as only treating injuries on the sidelines or responding to emergencies in the crowd, it has given me something even more valuable: a front-row seat to the ecosystems built around exceptional human performance.

Whether observing elite athletes, world-renowned musicians, or performers in front of tens of thousands of spectators, one thing becomes immediately obvious: Their performance is never viewed as an individual accomplishment alone. It is supported by an entire infrastructure designed to help them succeed.

When players step off the field or court, they are immediately met by athletic trainers, physicians, physical therapists, and performance specialists. Every aspect of the environment, from the stadium and playing surface to the equipment and support staff, is intentionally designed to help extraordinary talent perform at its best. It reflects a simple belief that if we expect people to perform at the highest level, we have a responsibility to create the conditions that make that performance possible.

While working as a physician during the FIFA World Cup match between Switzerland and Bosnia and Herzegovina at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, this became profoundly evident as I stood on the sideline watching groundskeepers prepare the pitch for the next game. Every blade of grass seemed intentional. The field was meticulously mowed, carefully watered, and inspected so there were no hidden divots or uneven patches that might alter the outcome of the game. What was more striking was that no one questioned whether this level of preparation was worth the effort. It was simply understood that if you ask the world’s best athletes to perform, the playing surface should never be the limiting factor. Even the fairness of officiating became a global conversation because everyone understood that seemingly small aspects of the environment can shape performance, alter outcomes, and influence what extraordinary talent is ultimately able to achieve.

It made me wonder why medicine, a profession where human performance is essential and carries life-or-death consequences, so often accepts the opposite philosophy.

Every year we recruit some of the brightest, most dedicated people in the world, educate them for more than a decade, and entrust them with extraordinarily complex decisions. Yet we often ask them to practice in environments where essential equipment isn’t readily available, technology creates a death by a thousand clicks rather than greater efficiency, documentation and billing priorities often compete with patient care instead of supporting it, administrative burdens compete for their cognitive bandwidth, and prior authorizations delay patient care and override the clinical judgment physicians spend years developing.

If the world’s greatest sporting organizations invest so intentionally in discovering talent, preparing the environment, and supporting performance, why shouldn’t healthcare, where the stakes are measured in human lives, do the same?

Imagine if healthcare adopted the same mindset as elite sports. What if we spent as much energy designing systems that supported clinicians as we do selecting them? What if removing unnecessary friction became as important as measuring quality? What if we viewed physician performance not simply as a function of individual resilience, but as something profoundly shaped by the environment in which that performance occurs?

To healthcare leaders, insurers, and policymakers, my challenge is simple: Start treating the people who care for patients as if they are among your organization’s most valuable assets. Ask them what they need to perform at their best, listen, and then do something about it. Remove unnecessary administrative burdens that steal attention from patients. Ensure they have reliable equipment, functional technology, and well-designed workflows. Give them time to recover, opportunities to grow, and compensation that reflects the value they create, not as a reward for surviving difficult conditions, but as an investment in sustained excellence.

Excellence should not depend on how much unnecessary friction someone can tolerate. It should be the predictable outcome of a system designed to help extraordinary people do extraordinary work. Design organizations that recognize the value of elite professional expertise. Treat investment in your talent as investment in high organizational performance. Be stewards of human potential.

For me, the World Cup wasn’t just about the beautiful game. It was a glimpse of what human beings are capable of when extraordinary talent is discovered, nurtured, supported, and enabled to flourish. Every inch of the pitch is prepared. Every variable that can reasonably be controlled is. Excellence is treated as something worth investing in long before the opening whistle. We shouldn’t ask talented people to compete on an uneven playing field when we have the ability to level it. And we certainly should expect no less for the people we entrust with our health.

What would it look like if healthcare was designed to help physicians perform at their best? Share in the comments.