RWL #233
Woo-hoo! edition
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! So I’m not going to bury the lead - I learned this past Thursday that I was approved for promotion and tenure! Woo-hoo! I wrote about the process a few times here, and many of you sent me notes of support, so thank you for that. I am so relieved that the process is over. So it looks like I’ll be staying here at UNH until the sun burns out, maybe a little longer!
Many of you who read this letter know me and know a bit of my story, but for those of you who don’t, I spent 23 years in the Army before coming to UNH, moving every few years. My oldest daughter lived in seven states by the time she was 18. Growing up I moved every few years, too. So I spent most of my life as something of a vagabond, never really putting down roots anywhere. Coming to UNH wasn’t a plan - the opportunity showed up one day and I wasn’t initially going to pursue it - I had a plan lined up to do at least another five years in the Army, and then maybe retire and teach at a community college somewhere. My wife pushed me to apply, and long story short, when the offer came, we had to do a lot of soul searching. The Army was a sure thing. We knew how it worked. I was pretty sure I could get one more promotion if I stuck around, which would have translated into better retirement. UNH was a gamble. I was an imperfect fit at best, and I was going to have to start all over with my research trajectory. It was not at all a sure thing. There was no going back to the Army once I made the jump if it didn’t work out. So I could walk away from the only real job I had had as an adult, on a gamble that I could figure out this new career and make adjustments on the fly to make it successful, or I could stay and do what I knew. We did a lot of soul searching, but my wife and I knew it was what we wanted - we wanted to be back in New Hampshire near family, and my wife knew that I wanted to be an academic. So we made the jump - I accepted the offer and put in my retirement paperwork.Â
I bought our house while my wife was still in Texas. She was brave to trust me. As it happens, we both love it, and at some point during the first year I began to refer to it as the Last Homely House (the LHH as I sometimes call it here). It was a play on the Lord of the Rings, where Elrond, King of the Elves, lives in the Last Homely House at the edge of civilization. For me it was a statement of planting my flag - this was going to be the last house. I wasn’t going to move any more - this was going to be Home.Â
Calling this house the Last Homely House was always a statement of faith until now. There were many days during which I was sure I had made a mistake and I was going to let my family down. I want to acknowledge my wife’s support throughout the whole process - I could not have done it without her. I am so honored that my colleagues and the University have decided my contributions warranted promotion and tenure, and I look forward to continuing to serve my students, the University, and the State of New Hampshire, my home. The picture above is in the front yard of the LHH.Â
So… onto this week’s newsletter! I have 15 responses from the survey and I did not take the time to think about them this week, but I will for next week’s newsletter, and I Iook forward to sharing them. I also plan to have a new question for the month of July. Until then, have a great week! Stay safe out there and enjoy the links!Â
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Read
What: Congressional Budget Office (CBO), THE FEDERAL BUDGET IN FISCAL YEAR 2020
https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-04/57170-budget-infographic.pdf
Why: Did you know in 2020 the Federal government spent more on Medicare than it did on Defense? Yes - Defense spending was $714B, and Medicare alone was $769B. I used to look at these numbers pretty regularly and one of the tricks I would do was to add together the major social programs - Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security and compare them to Defense spending. It used to be I’d have to add together all three to come up with a number bigger than Defense. I guess I hadn’t looked in a while because this made my eyes bug out. If you add all three together, you get $2.3T, which is three times the Defense budget. It’s not even worth comparing these any more given how the social spending has exploded in size so dramatically.Â
So you can get fun facts like this from the CBO’s 2-page info graphics summarizing the financial state of the nation. The CBO is non-partisan, in case you aren’t familiar with the institution. The infographic paints a scary picture of our country’s current financial condition. Most of the damage has been done during the last 12 years.Â
There are going to be real consequences to the debt levels we have incurred. For example, if climate change is as bad as many people seem to think it will be, we will need financial resources to respond to it. If we have already borrowed all the resources the market is willing to lend us, we won’t be able to respond effectively. It this sort of thing that, as leaders, it’s important to begin to think how these debt levels will potentially affect our organizations.
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Watch
What: Angola Prison Hospice: Opening the Door (22 min)
Why: I used this video to raise the issue of the needs of special populations in my health systems class. The video documents the hospice program at Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana. I asked my students to consider what our obligations were to people who have been convicted of violent crimes. Angola is where Louisiana sends its most violent criminals - most of the men in the video are convicted murderers. It was interesting to read their responses because they really struggled with the challenge.Â
The video is well done, and I think it is moving. There is a full-length documentary based on the Angola Hospice, featuring the actor Forest Whitaker as the narrator. It is called Serving Life (TV Movie 2011) (IMDb link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1699762/ ). My wife and I watched it last weekend. You can rent it on Amazon. It is very powerful - I highly recommend both the video as well as the full-length documentary. Maybe watch the free YouTube video first to see if it is of interest. They are both powerful.
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What: Towson University, What is culturally competent healthcare? (2 min)
Why: I also used this video in my health systems class to discuss access to care. It isn’t just that someone can get in to see a provider, there is a need for the provider to be able to communicate with the patient. This video from Towson U’s Department of Nursing does a nice job explaining what it means to provide culturally competent care.Â
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Listen
What: Honestly with Bari Weiss, When a Free Society Becomes a Police State (31 min)
?si=3x8X-Rh9Qo6qymG2k4tLWA&dl_branch=1
Why: Bari Weiss was an editor at the New York Times and resigned very publicly to protest the narrowing of views permitted at the paper. Since then she has started an excellent newsletter and now a podcast. I am following her evolution with interest because she seems to be in the lead of many journalists who are making the leap from even well known media organizations to launch their own projects. Using her new freedom, she is tackling some challenging topics. One of them is the forced closure of the pro-democracy Hong Kong-based Apple Daily this past week by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). What the CCP does in Hong Kong should be a warning to how it looks to interact with the world as it continues to accumulate power.Â
Listening to the the courage of Jimmy Lai, the founder, and the team he oversaw as the pushed back against the Communist take over of Hong Kong and the CCP’s crushing of the pro-democracy movement makes me wish I had 1/10th of their courage. We take so much for granted in the US.Â
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
Associate 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)