Thanks for the thoughtful response. We too were surprised by how deeply we could take the model of the teaching hospital to software engineering. Whenever we think to expand the system in one dimension or another, the teaching hospital model seems to have a nearby analogy.
I will confess however that some people internally find the model confusing. For example, one user couldn't remember that to get an issue actioned, they needed to put it into the "waiting room". They wanted to be able to action their issues without learning how complex medical systems operate. There seems to be more work on our plates to make this resonate with all users.
Now imagine what it is like to run an actual hospital with real people whose lives (or the lives of their loved ones) are often at stake, with underpaid and overworked staff and with messy biological creatures as the subjects instead of bits and bytes. If anything this whole exercise should also give you a much deeper appreciation of the people that feel themselves called to help others.
I had a similarly useful analogy of the legal system emerge, in a similar way. I think there's a great analogy between policy in the legal system and policy in software engineering, and they have some awfully good (and very, very historical) ways to think about e.g. amending, repealing, and adjudicating things based on those policies.
I will confess however that some people internally find the model confusing. For example, one user couldn't remember that to get an issue actioned, they needed to put it into the "waiting room". They wanted to be able to action their issues without learning how complex medical systems operate. There seems to be more work on our plates to make this resonate with all users.