RWL #172 - almost summer
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire - Forward Operating Base Last Homely House (FOB LHH)! Crazy busy week, which is why my Friday newsletter is coming out on Sunday. Classes end a week from tomorrow. I’ll miss the students, but I’m ready for a breather. And to switch back to research mode.
I made some delicious buttermilk biscuits this week - I’ve never used a cast iron skillet to cook them, but that’s what this recipe called for. My wife gave me my first quarantine hair cut in the garage yesterday. I was ready to just shave it all off, but she made me give her a chance. She actually did a pretty nice job. I also finished reading a fun non-fiction book called Driving Mr. Albert by Michael Paterniti. Paterniti makes a cross country drive with the pathologist who did the autopsy on Albert Einstein, and then kept Einstein’s brain, ostensibly to study it. Not a lot happens in the book, but Paterniti is such a beautiful word smith and storyteller that you want to take your time and taste each of his words.
Still continuing with more links. I hope you find them useful - as usual, feedback is welcome. This will end and we will get back to life. Hang tight, cook some good food, read, watch, and listen, and take care of each other.
Read
What: Reuters, In four U.S. state prisons, nearly 3,300 inmates test positive for coronavirus -- 96% without symptoms
Why: I thought my dissertation would be on the economics of prisons, so I spent a significant amount of time learning about them. The industry remains an area of interest to me. I’ve been thinking about the challenges represented by the COVID-19 crisis to that population, so when this article popped up, I was intrigued. If you leave people locked up during a plague, is that cruel and unusual punishment? But if it turns out the plague has almost no symptoms? This is the mystery of this virus. But the prisons seem to provide us with a window into the processes. It’s terrifyingly dangerous, but apparently only to a small fraction of the population. It will be fascinating to see what we understand about the virus two or ten years from now.
What: The New Yorker, How Anthony Fauci Became America’s Doctor
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/20/how-anthony-fauci-became-americas-doctor/amp
Why: This is a long profile about Fauci. Just a few weeks ago, I had no idea who Fauci was, but my father, being a pathologist, has followed him for decades. The opening of the article is more political (anti-Trump) than I usually try to be on this newsletter, but if you get past that, the profile is interesting and informative about this man we are looking to as a nation. (FYI - there is an audio version of the article available on the page when you click through)
What: Fast Company, How the COVID-19 pandemic could reshape hospitals
https://www.fastcompany.com/90493488/how-the-covid-19-pandemic-could-reshape-hospitals
Why: Some interesting insights into hospital design that are coming to the fore as a result of the current crisis. For example, most hospitals are not designed to expand rapidly to accommodate a significant influx of patients from a pandemic. There is a cost to this flexibility, but maybe the cost is worth it? Hard to say.
Watch
What: Pennsylvania workers going home after 28 days making COVID-19 protective gear
Why: Some of you know I served in the Army for almost 26 years (if you count my reserve time), so I get a lot of “thank you for your service” which I am honestly never quite sure how to take. Right now we’re seeing an outpouring of gratitude for essential workers - cashiers and clerks who are making sure we can still buy food - and of course healthcare workers. I just came across this news clip today capturing a group of factory workers who agreed to spend a month in their factory working 12 hour shifts and sleeping in the factory when they weren’t on duty, to make essential components that would go into PPE for healthcare workers and first responders. In the military that would have been just another month - no big deal - we do it all the time. But these guys (it seems they were all men) were regular employees, and they volunteered to stay in their factory and live there to ensure no one got sick, and the supply chain could run full bore. That to me is a remarkable story of sacrifice, even if they were well paid. I don’t usually share current news stories, but this one seemed special. So many people are really going above and beyond during this time, but this was inspiring.
Listen
What: NPR, Bitter Taste For Coffee Shop Owner, As New $600 Jobless Benefit Drove Her To Close (3 min)
Why: Policy is a tricky business. Implementing a policy for a country as large, complex, and diverse as the United States is exponentially trickier than say, implementing policy in some small European country with the population of New Hampshire. When I heard the Federal Government was going to start paying $600 a week in unemployment on top of what the states already pay, I quickly did the math in my head, $600/40 = $15, and saw the Democrats had written in their target minimum wage into the Cares Act. And that is on top of the miserly but non-zero amount that regular unemployment provided. So many people would be earning significantly more than their normal wage by being unemployed right now, particularly in a place like New Hampshire. In Seattle or New York City, $15/hour is probably easy to come by. But most low skilled workers in rural areas of the country don’t earn that much. My daughter who works part time retail while going to school got laid off. She probably brought home less than $200/week. Thanks to the Cares Act, she’s now bringing home close to $800, and not working. My middle daughter has been working full time at a restaurant, and just got asked to come back to work. She’s eager to get back to work because she hates sitting around, but she talked to her restaurant’s owner and asked to stay out a couple of days longer to finish her week for one last unemployment check. The owner said she had gotten so many comments like that from her employees that she was no longer planning to reopen and never mind. I’ve heard from my colleagues in the long term care field that they are struggling to find LNAs who are willing to come in because they can make more from unemployment.
What: HBR Ideacast, Managing Crises in the Short and Long Term
https://hbr.org/podcast/2020/04/managing-crises-in-the-short-and-long-term
Why: Easier to let the site introduce this one:
“Eric McNulty, associate director of Harvard’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, studies how managers successfully lead their companies through crises such as the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster and the Boston Marathon terror attack. He identifies the common traps that leaders fall into and shares how the best ones excel by thinking longer-term and trusting their teams with operational details. He also finds that companies that put people ahead of the bottom line tend to weather these storms better.”
I thought it was worthwhile.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
Also, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://tinyletter.com/markbonica
See you next Friday!
Mark
Mark J. Bonica, Ph.D., MBA, MS
Assistant Professor
Department of Health Management and Policy
University of New Hampshire
(603) 862-0598
mark.bonica@unh.edu
Health Leader Forge Podcast: http://healthleaderforge.org
'It is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keep the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.' - Gandalf (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey)