Greetings from … Groton, Connecticut! We’re visiting daughter #1 this weekend, celebrating her 25th birthday. When she was a baby one of our college friends gave us a time capsule - a big tin can like the ones you can buy Boy Scout popcorn in. We agreed she would open it on her 25th birthday, so we opened it together last night. We collected letters from all of our family as well as Time and Life magazines, and some other things like her first sneakers and a onesie she wore. Some of the family aren’t with us anymore, so those letters are especially wonderful to have. We have time capsules for our other daughters, too. So it will be fun to open those when the time comes.
Classes start on Monday, so I’m doing my last minute touch ups on my syllabi. Two of the three are done and the learning management system is all loaded. One is still in the works. Nothing like a little procrastination! I’m looking forward to seeing my students again. This should be an exciting semester - I will be working to place them in their summer internships so they can get their first taste of what their futures might hold. We’re still limited by COVID, but many sites are opening their doors and many fantastic opportunities have already been laid out for them. It will be great to see who goes where. So off to the races we go!
Stay well and stay safe!
Read
What: PNAS, Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,000 per year
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2016976118
Why: It has been common wisdom based on previous studies that experienced well-being does not improve with income above $75,000 - in other words, above a certain level, money doesn’t buy you happiness. This new study argues that money does buy you happiness.
What is interesting here are the categories of happiness - there is experienced well-being and life satisfaction. Of course happiness is subjective and has to be reported. The difference between these two measures of happiness is “experienced well-being” is what you are feeling at a moment in time. So to measure your experienced well-being, I would ask you, “Right now, on a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you?” Whereas “life satisfaction” I can ask you, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you with the last year in your life?” Both are judgments, but the immediacy is different.
What was interesting was people reported both positive and negative experiences for experienced well-being, but the higher your income, the more the ratio turns toward positive experiences. So in a sense, this proves the Budhist/Stoic approach that happiness comes from elimination of suffering.
I guess it’s true that money can buy you happiness. The methods are interesting. Worth a read.
**
What: HFMA, Why effective maternity care requires an innovative, value-based strategy
Why: The argument here is that patients seeking maternity care have time to make choices, and therefore behave more like customers. Bundles make sense from both the provider and patient perspectives.
**
Watch
What: Lucy Kalanithi, What makes life worth living in the face of death
https://www.ted.com/talks/lucy_kalanithi_what_makes_life_worth_living_in_the_face_of_death
Why: Kalanithi talks about dealing with the death of her husband Paul Kalanithi. They were both physicians (Lucy still is). Paul wrote the book when Breath Becomes Air about his experiences before he died. In this video she talks about patient-centered care that respects the patient’s desires, balancing the necessary trade-offs. “Living means more than just staying alive.”
**
Listen
What: Freakonomics, How to Fix the Incentives in Cancer Research
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/cancer/
Why: This podcast does a nice job of discussing the challenges of cancer research. It also highlights some of the reasons why cancer research has been slowed by perverse incentives.
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 .
If you’re looking for a searchable archive, you can see my draft folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jwGLdjsb1WKtgH_2C-_3VvrYCtqLplFO?usp=sharing
Finally, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://markbonica.substack.com/welcome
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)