RWL Newsletter #107
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire where we are BACK in full swing! I’ll be teaching the second part of the management sequence (org behavior and leadership) and the finance sequence (basic corporate finance, building on financial accounting from the first semester) for our undergraduate program again, so I’ll probably be mentioning materials from those two courses over the next few months. Opening the door to the classroom for the first time each semester, I can almost hear a starter’s gun go off, and I feel that same surge I have felt at the beginning of a long race. Standing here in late January, I know the classes will end in mid-May, but it feels like they are going to go on forever. Come late April, though, I know it will feel like I am in a full-tilt sprint as I try to get in all the last minute material and get all the grading done. And then, it will suddenly be over. It’s a funny rhythm that my life has. I’m really quite lucky, though. I like having this punctuation. I love getting to know my students, helping them grow, and pushing them out the door to make room for the new ones. This semester, the students for whom I started RWL will graduate. I really can’t believe it has been four years. It seems like just yesterday that I started here at UNH.
I have some really cool stuff this week to check out. All of it should catch you in the feels, in some way or another. Check the links out and see what I mean!
(I did a bit of Tony Soprano this morning, shuffling down to the end of the driveway to get my paper, so I thought I’d share that image. I wasn’t in a bathrobe, but I was feeling pretty sloppy.)
Read
What: The Philadelphia Inquirer, ‘Pete the Groin Crusher’ has crushed 10,000 patients’ groins ‘without even a sweat’
http://www.philly.com/news/philadelphia/pete-the-groin-crusher-pennsylvania-hospital-20190102.html
Why: Patient experience is a new(ish) buzzword in healthcare. Healthcare is a people business, and no one comes to a hospital to have fun. If you’re in a hospital, it’s a bad day almost by definition. So having the right people interacting with patients is critical. That’s why this story about Pete jumped out at me.
From the article:
“I’m holding someone’s groin for 20 minutes, they tend to remember me and nobody else,” Schiavo said. “I tell them: ‘I can promise you two things when I’m done: You’ll never forget my name or my face.’ And they never do.”
The whole thing is great.
I really don’t want to have my groin crushed. But if I had to have it done, I think I’d want Pete.
Watch
What: Anna Coleman Ladd made masks for Veterans who suffered face injuries during World War I (2 minutes)
https://youtu.be/tda0omFtxco
Why: The story is about facial prosthetics in a time before plastics. Before I started working in military medicine, I associated plastic surgery with celebrity nose jobs – purely a vanity thing. Then I came to understand the importance of restorative plastics, especially for burn victims. Having spent some time hanging around Walter Reed and Brooke Army Medical Centers and seen the wounded of our longest wars, I came to really appreciate the importance of the specialty. Imagine now a time before restorative surgery where you or your loved one had to live with these horrifying wounds. Studs Terkel’s The Good War has some terribly sad passages of soldiers returning from WWII with disfiguring facial wounds.
The work Coleman did was amazing given the available technology.
You can learn more about her work here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/faces-of-war-145799854/
Listen
What: The Art of Manliness, How to Get Better at Taking Feedback (56 minutes)
https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-246-get-better-taking-feedback/
Why: I had a student contact me over winter break about her peer evaluations from the fall semester management course. She had been given some tough medicine by two groups. She wanted to ask me for advice. I shared this podcast with her and suggested she follow up with her group members and ask for their honest feedback. I thought I’d share this podcast with you, as well. It’s really hard to ask for and take feedback, and process it well. We can all work on this.
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 by e-mail, 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
Have a great weekend and do amazing things!
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
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor." - Henry David Thoreau