Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! Last full week of classes! We’re approaching the HeartBreak Hill of the semester-long marathon! Speaking of Boston (in case you didn’t get the reference, click on the link), I was in Boston at Brigham and Women’s (pic above) again Friday afternoon for a networking event we call “Boston Day” - where Boston-based alumni from my program get together to meet the current students and give them advice about their future. It’s one of the traditions that makes HMP a great major and the kind of program I wish I had found when I was a young person.
The first panel featured “senior” alumni - most of whom either graduated just before I arrived in the program or were my early students.
We had about 23 students and about half again as many alumni. Not a bad turnout this year, given we only have 44 upperclassmen right now. Unfortunately, I had to blow out early because the wife had her first office Christmas party since the early 90’s. She’s working for a fabulous public accounting firm that believes in taking care of their employees. We had a very nice party in downtown Portsmouth, and spent the night in town, despite it only being about 10 miles from the LHH. We got up the next morning and wandered around the town like we were tourists, including walking along the waterfront under the Memorial Bridge between Portsmouth and Kittery (Maine).
Portsmouth is such a great town, but it is becoming a bit of a museum to itself as it becomes progressively more touristy. Nevertheless, well worth visiting.
I say this every semester, and sometimes here, when we start the semester, it feels like it is going to go on forever. And now as we approach the end, it feels like I am running full tilt. It’s been a heck of a semester - conferences, networking events, a book chapter, and as always, a new group of kids to mentor - in other words, I’m very blessed. I hope you are feeling blessed, too, as we move into the last days of 2023.
As usual, willing good for all of you, and see you Sunday with a new essay!
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Read
What: Global News, B.C. woman gets surgery in U.S., says wait times at home could have cost her life
https://globalnews.ca/news/10118619/bc-cancer-agency-wait-times-surgery-united-states/
Why: Before I introduce the article, I want to tell you I had never heard of Global News. I try not to share pieces from low-quality organizations with you, so I did so poking around to evaluate this site. They appear to be a legitimate Canadian news organization with a center-left lean, based on various sites I found that evaluate news sources. If you know otherwise, please let me know.
OK - so, I teach a course called Introduction to the US Healthcare System. Every textbook I have considered, and ultimately the textbook I use, views the US healthcare system very negatively. They universally praise England’s National Health Service (NHS) and of course Canada’s health system.
All health systems that do not use the price mechanism (the US sort of uses the price mechanism) to allocate health services have to use something else. That something else is rationing. Most European health systems and Canada strictly limit the kinds of care you can receive, and they limit the availability of care. In the relatively sparsely area I live in, I could drive to probably 10 facilities with MRI machines in less than an hour - and with a little over an hour, I could be in Boston, one of the largest hubs of health innovation in the world. I don’t even know how many MRI machines are packed into Bean Town. All you have to do is be able to pay to get a scan. But in countries where healthcare is “free”, you usually can’t pay. You have to get in line. And that is the theme of this article.
A woman with treatable cancer was offered physician assisted suicide instead of a prompt appointment with an oncologist. She chose to come to the US and pay $200,000 for her treatment instead. People with her kind of cancer live 10-20 years after treatment that is available in the US. (And I’m guessing if she had had US health insurance, that bill would have been a fraction of that total.)
I’ll take the US system, thank you very much.
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Watch
What: The Gottman Institute, The Easiest Way to Improve Your Relationship (2 min)
Why: I came across this video when I was doing research for my interview with my colleague Tyler Jamison on romantic relationships. This is a simple idea that has a lot of social science data to support it. Watch it - it’s only 2 minutes. Then try to implement it!
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Listen
What: HBR, Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel on the Challenges and Opportunities of Following a Visionary Leader (32 min)
Why: Great pod dealing with issues of succession. One of the things I dealt with in the Army was always being the successor of someone else. Sometimes I followed duds, sometimes I followed studs. It was much easier to follow a dud because all you had to be was not awful. But following someone who was charismatic, well-liked, or smart (or some combination of all three) was much harder. Buechel’s advice? Don’t try to be the previous, beloved guy. Be yourself. I’ll add, be your best self, as much as you can. But you can’t be someone you aren’t for a sustained period. (honestly, I am not a Whole Foods fan - it feels like I am shopping in a grocery store designed for people who have a lot more money than I do - and probably do - but this is a good interview)