The following is the text of the farewell address delivered by Immediate Past President Harry Sax, MD, FACHE at the 2017 Annual Conference.
Thank you for the privilege of serving as your President. As many of you know, I’m a relative newcomer to California, and you have all been exceedingly helpful in navigating the landscape. We’ve had a successful year on many fronts – 25 new FACHEs, over 130 hours of certified programming, and very successful programs from early careerists and students – all good things, as they are our future. I want to express gratitude to my board, especially the immediate past president and current regent Ellen Zaman, as well as president-elect Victor Carrasco – you have been both encouraging and brutally honest when I needed guidance. I learn something from you every time we work through a problem.
This chapter could not function without the stalwart support of Tamara Dilbeck and Erika Soqui. You guys have been incredibly tolerant of my surgical personality and helped me get things done, often before I asked. The success of the chapter is supported by your skills.
I would like to take a few minutes to reflect on the challenges ahead, and perhaps put a different spin on where the solutions lie. It’s not about ROI or cost reduction.
When I assumed this post last year, the country was still in a daze from the unexpected election results. It has continued to be a roller coaster of a year, and the only thing certain is a continued sense of dis-ease and mixed messages. Yet despite this, we continue to serve our patients and employees, provide a sense of stability and not overreact. Basic blocking, tackling, and teamwork makes a football team successful over a season, even with weekly ups and downs. And so it is with healthcare.
As leaders, we must first and foremost care for our colleagues. This may seem counterintuitive to the “patients first” mantra, yet if the team doesn’t feel support for and from each other, they cannot fully commit to the patient. As resources become more limited, it is the sense of pulling together at the grass roots level that will solve many of challenges we face. During several trips to Haiti after the earthquake, I saw traction devices created from a broken shopping cart, clothesline, and Chlorox bottles filled with sand. It was an energetic and optimistic time.
We also must face the culture we create during training and each day. We walk a thin line between pushing people to their limits, so they learn their true capacity, and creating burnout, addiction, and a hostile work environment. Leadership is critical. Military troops led by servant, inspirational leaders had a lower rate of PTSD despite seeing significant combat.
People must be supported yet also held accountable. David Marx’s Just Culture calibrates the response to an event by the intent of the action, not the outcome. We too often look at the severity of the outcome, not the degree of omission or commission. We try to make systems error tolerant, but that alone is not enough.
I challenge each of you to take an honest look at what motivates you, and how you serve those around you. Do you really listen to front line staff? Do you deal promptly with disruptive employees, understanding that they themselves may also be suffering? Do you take failure as an opportunity to really look at your flaws and vulnerabilities, not to blame, but to gain insight and move on? Do you laugh at least once a day? Can you find humor in your own foibles? And most importantly, can you dream what a great future looks like?
Some of us were alive during the 60’s – a similarly turbulent time, with war, class struggle, and unrest. Bobby Kennedy captured what we were struggling with and set a course forward.
“Some men see things as they are, and ask why?” he said. “I dream things that never were, and ask why not?”
Dream big my friends, be good to each other. I’m looking forward to great things from all of you.
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