RWL Newsletter #92
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! It's been a busy week, despite having Columbus Day off. To make classes line up and have an even number of meetings, the University made Tuesday a Monday (universities have mysterious powers over the space-time continuum) so as result, I taught Tuesday night and then Wednesday night this week. Normally I use Tuesday to prep for Wednesday, but no such luck this week. Nevertheless, I was able to invite one of our local hospital's CMOs to come speak with my management students about what its like to be a physician, then make the transition to physician leader, which I think was valuable. I love how supportive the local community is of my students.
Picture above is of a recipe I was cooking this week - seared steak with fresh basil pesto and raw zucchini salad. My wife and I have signed up for a meal planning service and this was one of the meals suggested to us by the service. This is not a service where they send you a box of food that you cook - we tried that and found it was both too expensive and an amazing waste of packing materials. This service just sends you a selection of suggested recipes each week based on information you provide the service about dietary needs and preferences. So far, it's been great. I mention this because I've been on a diet since the beginning of the semester. It's been going well so far, but one of the things my wife and I struggle with is meal planning. And when we fail to plan, we are likely to go out to eat. And when we go out to eat, we are more likely to overeat. I remember reading in a Michael Pollan book ( Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation ) a quote from a fast food executive who, when asked about eating healthy said, "Eat whatever you want, just cook it yourself." I've found that to be so true. By cutting back on eating out, I've cut my weight in the last six weeks by almost 10%, and I feel like it is sustainable (I'm eating steak and losing weight - it's really not bad). If you're interested in the meal service, I'm happy to give you the information and a coupon - just send me an e-mail - I don't want you guys to think I am pushing a particular product.
Anyway, here's this week's links! I hope you enjoy them, with a side of steak.
Read
What: MIT Technology Review, James Allison Has Unfinished Business with Cancer
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604086/immunotherapy-pioneer-james-allison-has-unfinished-business-with-cancer/
Why: James Allison just won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work in advancing the use of immunotherapy to fight cancer. This article written about his research is from a year ago. I find the idea that we can stimulate our immune system to fight diseases like cancer fascinating. I like this passage:
“What you are looking at in cancer is natural selection at a high speed,” Vence says. “When you treat it with chemotherapy, maybe you destroy 99 percent of the tumor. But the 1 percent that is left is resistant to chemotherapy. That’s the one that grows back and basically kills you.”... “The beauty of immunotherapy,” Vence says, “is that the immune system can evolve at the same time, along with the tumor. It can keep up much easier.”
I look forward to hearing more about how the immune system will be stimulated to treat a variety of disease.
Watch
What: TED, Elliot Krane, The Mystery of Chronic Pain
https://www.ted.com/talks/elliot_krane_the_mystery_of_chronic_pain
Why: A very interesting discussion about chronic pain and the plasticity of the nervous system. It's a TED Talk, so it takes a complex clinical issue and makes it accessible at the lay level. I thought this might be useful to those of you who are non-clinicians like me to help your own understanding of patients with chronic pain. Understanding pain is important given our larger problems with opioids, since they are given for pain.
Listen
What: Masters of Scale, Eric Schmidt: INNOVATION = MANAGED CHAOS
https://mastersofscale.com/eric-schmidt-innovation-managed-chaos/
Why: Eric Schmidt is Executive Chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, Inc. From 2001 to 2011 he was CEO of Google. The podcast includes the story of how he came to Google in its early days, and how he worked with the company culture to help it grow. I really like discussions of corporate culture. The interviewer is Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn. Toward the end of the interview, he interjects:
I want to offer a note of caution here. I would never advise an entrepreneur to blindly copy Google’s rules and announce to their teams, “Okay, you all get free meals, 20% percent time, and the freedom to camp out in the CEO’s office. Now: start innovating.” That’s not a recipe for managed chaos so much as plain old chaos. As Eric said, you have to see your organization as a complex system that operates by a logic and beauty of its own.
I agree. In my observation, there is no one right culture. When I was served in combat units in the Army, the culture was one of hyper-masculine competitiveness. In hospitals, the culture was more collaborative. If your organizations mission is to go out and kill bad guys, you probably need to have a hyper-masculine, competitive culture. But if your organization is to care for the sick and injured, then collaboration is more appropriate. I wasn't a particularly good fit in the combat units because I'm not hyper-masculine or hyper-competitive. I'm much more interested in doing cool things with other people and helping people develop. Not only do you have to know what culture is right for your company, you have to know what culture is right for you.
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