RWL #237
“Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.”
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! I’m continuing my gallivanting around northern New England to visit my students in the field. It’s such a cool thing to do - to see young people testing the waters of their future and succeeding. It’s also great to see alumni and professional colleagues whom I know from ACHE, HFMA, etc. And it’s extra great to be out and about in person after the God-awful year and a half we just went through.
Speaking of God, I came across this quote that is (almost certainly apocryphally) attributed to St. Francis: “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” This is perhaps the best leadership advice I can think of. You have to replace “Gospel” with your organization’s mission, but otherwise, it’s perfect (unless your mission is to preach the Gospel, in which case no substitutions are necessary!). We used to attend a church in Texas that used the phrase, “Be the church”, to mean let your actions speak as much as your words. In reality, actions speak much more loudly than words, especially when the words and the actions aren’t aligned. A useful, simple variation on this phrase would be, “Preach leadership at all times. Use words if necessary.”
I see mentorship as a key function of leadership. Mentorship, especially in coaching mode, often requires words. While a good mentor acts as an exemplar, it is often necessary for the mentor to explain what s/he is doing to the protégé. It is often necessary to “use words” when pointing out to a protégé where the protégé is going wrong. But the words and deeds have to line up, as I said above. This is what makes this Franciscan-spirited quote so useful. There is a fundamental truth there, even if the Saint himself did not say this.
Till next week, enjoy the links and stay well!
(I had a lovely paddle on Friday morning. The weather and commitments have worked against my getting out on the water as often as I would like. It was nice to be out.)
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Read
What: Reason, These Doctors Exemplify the Virtues of Free Market Medicine
https://reason.com/2021/06/19/what-free-market-health-care-would-actually-look-like/
Why: I’ve been interested in how to use the free market to fix healthcare for a couple of decades now. Healthcare as a whole keeps increasing its share of GDP, and increasing its share of workers’ paychecks. If you drill down, though, you will see that things that are paid for out of pocket by patients are not rising, but things paid for by insurance are. This tells you the problem is using insurance as a payment mechanism. This article does a nice job showcasing the growing Direct Primary Care movement by focusing on a small physician practice that has chosen to eschew insurance reimbursement. I have a podcast I did a while back with a DPC provider here on the seacoast. I’m hoping to do some further research on this topic this fall. DPC could really revolutionize primary care and make both patients and providers happier.
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What: Marginal Revolution, The Uber Pay Gap
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/02/uber-pay-gap.html
Why: Most studies about the gender pay gap are muddy at best. This post is a summary of a paper examining why men who drive for Uber make more than women who drive for Uber. The results are interesting, and it doesn’t have to do with sexism. The underlying paper is free to read here.
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What: Bllomberg, Rural Hospitals May Get Federal Aid to Reshape as Standalone ERs
Why: Rural hospitals are important, but struggle to remain economically viable. Converting to standalone EDs with some outpatient services might be an option. More detail here from the National Rural Health Association. Especially as telehealth continues to improve.
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Watch
What: Firing Line with Margaret Hoover | PBS, John McWhorter (27 min)
Why: I’m concerned about the illiberal nature of the Woke movement. John McWhorter is a professor at Columbia University and currently writing a book about how the Woke movement is like a secular religion - he is calling it “The Elect.” He has an excellent Substack where he writes about the interaction between race and the Woke movement. This is a very good interview. McWhorter is always very precise (he is a linguist by training).
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What: TEDxBrayfordPool, It's a man's world: Challenging nursing stereotypes | Sean Morton (18 min)
Why:A male nurse talks about being a man in a profession dominated by women. I found this video when I was looking for material for my health systems class about health professions. He does a funny presentation with a lot of imagery that shows how society thinks of nursing as fundamentally a woman’s world.
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Listen
What: Discourse Podcast, Fortress and Frontier: Bob Graboyes talks to Dr. Devi Shetty about Innovations in Healthcare (62 min)
Why: Fascinating conversation about how one private health system in India is making care more affordable. There are conceptual linkages between his podcast and the Uber post above. Volume is critical.
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
"Were there none discontented with what they have, the World would never reach anything better." - Florence Nightingale