ICYMI – In Case You Missed It – May 2016 – for Physicians and Physician Leaders
“Rather than going into all of this thinking, I can be anything I want to be, the approach you’re taking is I don’t know yet what I can become. You don’t know where any of this might take you; it’s not possible to know that now. But what you learn about yourself and what excites you won’t be abstract; it will be very concrete knowledge born of practical experience. Over time, you open up paths that you could not have imagined, out of which emerge options that you never would have seen before.
Although we think that taking a rejuvenating weekend walk in the woods is how we reconnect with the world and with ourselves, this attitude leads us to greater disconnection from both. We need to think of our weekday life differently. The Way isn’t something we reach while walking in the woods on the weekend. It’s something we bring about actively through our daily interactions.” – The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life
May 2014 – An important month for me.
It was my last meeting as TPMG Board Member. It provided an opportunity to reflect on and share what I learned over the past 9 years with Board members and the hundreds of doctors at the Kaiser Permanente Roseville medical center and offices. I also learned what my CEO Robert Pearl and TPMG Board Chair and my Physician in Chief Chris Palkowski thought of me.
I learned so much from countless incredible TPMG physician leaders and colleagues.
Two years later, I’ve learned:
- Be true to yourself. Even in times when people want you to be something else.
- The world is increasingly complex. Solving these problems will require deep insight, experience, and collaboration across different disciplines and specialties. The easier solution is to use 30 second soundbites. The harder and ultimately right solution is working hard at it. Choosing the right leader is more important than ever. The consequences of making the right judgment call may not be apparent until years later. We will see if our country chooses wisely. “Slide 43 – “Do we understand what we cannot see or know? In times of complexity, people try to erroneously simplify what they don’t understand. This can be dangerous if not recognized. As doctors we need to be humble enough to appreciate as smart as we are, we have blind spots. Our colleagues also have blind spots. To overcome them, we need to embrace expertise from all fields.”
- I could not have known at the time that leaving the TPMG Board set in motion a series of events and decisions which resulted in where I am today. It’s hard to tell what the next months and years ahead may look like. As the late CEO of Apple Steve Jobs noted in his 2005 Stanford commencement address, “you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
- If anything epitomizes my time at the TPMG Board of Directors, then it is career advice is from CEO of Apple Tim Cook who said recently, “Do what you love. Put your whole heart into it. Have fun.”
Health Care
- Can a health care system disrupt itself? Watch out! “Providence, in particular, has been a pioneer, drawing in talent and leadership from companies like Amazon and Salesforce.com to help transform both the consumer experience and core clinical operations. Leaders from both Providence and St. Joseph highlight a health system committed to innovation at scale.”
- You know her from my final Board presentation and last month’s ICYMI. Read this beautiful blog post and ask is “Hacking the hospital death – Empowering people to design a better dying experience when a loved one can’t leave the hospital” possible? Absolutely! How can we help enable doctors, staff, patients, and families to make this happen? Note where the photo was taken.
- Perhaps we’ll never have every doctor perform to the level of the best. When 750 surgeons were given identical cases, a research found “surgeons differed by as much as 0 to 100 percent when it came to estimating the risks of a surgery, such as the chances a patient might experience a serious complication….This variation seemed to come down to surgeons’ perceptions of risks and benefits…those risk perceptions were very predictive of whether or not a surgeon would recommend an operation.” OR Can you get surgeons to get better at assessing and managing risk by giving them more experience and active learning with high volume of cases? A classic NEJM article, “Surgical Skill and Complication Rates after Bariatric Surgery”.
- Small study pokes holes in direct to consumer dermatology telemedicine services. True! It isn’t necessarily that the 16 telemedicine services have variation, it’s that health care in general has variation and that telemedicine can scale up the variation. Or if done correctly, telemedicine can also scale high quality consistent care every patient every time. ““When implemented appropriately, DTC telemedicine websites can improve access to quality care for patients facing geographic, mobility, or financial constraints,” researchers wrote in the study. “While a large body of evidence supports the use of teleconsultation for skin disease between a referring clinician and dermatologist, our study raises significant concerns about the rapidly expanding use of direct-to-consumer telemedicine.” If anyone knows a dermatologist interested in making this happen, email me at davis@lemonaid.com.
Outside Health Care
- One of the most disturbing and concerning pieces I’ve read in sometime. The Secret Shame of Middle-Class Americans : Nearly half of Americans would have trouble finding $400 to pay for an emergency. I’m one of them. Part of the reason for wage stagnation? Health care costs but the author never talks about that. What is our responsibility to make care more affordable? “You are more likely to hear from your buddy that he is on Viagra than that he has credit-card problems,” says Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist who teaches at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and ministers to individuals with financial issues. “Much more likely.” America is a country, as Donald Trump has reminded us, of winners and losers, alphas and weaklings. To struggle financially is a source of shame, a daily humiliation—even a form of social suicide. Silence is the only protection.
- Most Americans Don’t Know About Ride-Sharing and the ‘Gig Economy’ – A new Pew report finds only 15% of adults have used ride-hailing services and only 6% have had their groceries delivered. Only a SF, Silicon Valley, NYC phenomenon?
- The new third space – to hang out? Forget Starbucks….-> Apple Stores get major makeover.
Personal
- Does how we consume content alter our ability to interpret information? Digital media may be changing how you think: New study finds users focus on concrete details rather than the big picture
- Speaking of being yourself, how can you not be inspired by Vice President Joe Biden? Joe Biden stuns morning show anchors with a heartfelt note to his 12-year-old self. “Say what you mean. Mean what you say.”
Spending time listening to podcasts. Latest favorites include:
- Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz – “Software is Eating the World” – A16Z podcast. Favorite episode – a16z Podcast: Disruption in Business… and Life with Marc Andreessen and HBS Professor and father of the theory of disruption, Clayton Christensen and a16z Podcast: Airspace as the Next Internet-Like Platform.
- Munk Debates about public policy – The Next Debate. Favorite episode – The Future of Investing – with Mohamed El-Erian, author of The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse, chair of President Obama’s Global Development Council, chief economic adviser of Allianz and former CEO of the investment firm PIMCO where he helped oversee $2 trillion in assets.
What I’m re-reading and on my list. You?
What did I miss? What else would you add?
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