MORTALITY and the GIFT OF TIME
Atul Gawande’s recent book, Being Mortal:Medicine and What Matters in the End, takes a good look at how we, and the medical community, deal with people in the later years of their lives. For those of us with aging parents or who ourselves are already past the midpoint, whatever that may be, there are some
0MISSING BRAINS
You may have seen the story coming from the University of Texas and the mystery of 100 missing brains. It seems they were destroyed in 2002. They were getting rid of “biological waste” either due to lack of use or no longer needed for neuroscience research. Regardless of the reasons, it started my brain to
0THANKSGIVING 2014
Earlier this month, we held our annual Santa Fe Seminar with about 30 people from all over the country in attendance. There was a contingent from California but also people from the Midwest and East as well. Leadership and Design (www.leadershipanddesign.org) holds a number of workshops, seminars and gatherings and the one in Santa Fe
0ORGANIZATION WELLNESS CHECK (another reprise or for some a surprise)
How well is it working? Here are four indicators that you might review to get a better idea of where things stand according to these criteria. They may suggest where you might want to consider a shift to something different in order to perform at a more efficient or productive level. Structure – How is
0REPRISE – LESS IS MORE
(Moving toward Thanksgiving, November 27, 2014) This phrase, “less is more” appeared in a love poem (line78) in 1855 by Robert Browning , “Andrea del Sarto” called The Faultless Painter. The phrase was adopted by Mies van der Rohe, an architect whom I studied briefly in an undergraduate course called “The House.” He, along with
06429 – Follow up on the medical assembly line
“6429” More observations, experience and impressions – We walk into the day surgery unit at the local, regional, medical center at 5:30 AM Monday morning and are given a card with our number on it, #6429. There are codes below the number that can give an update on the patient’s status, provided somewhere on a
0Stories about Storytelling
The first story is about an outstanding teacher, one whom I hired in 1994 to teach language arts to 6th and 7thgraders. Gwynn Spencer was a unique personality for many reasons, not the least of which was her passion for storytelling. She had a great friend in Joe Hayes, an award winning author and teacher
0DOWNSIZING, RIGHT SIZING: A Season of Change
Call it what you will, scaling down can be more challenging than scaling up. What do you keep and what do you sell, disperse among family members, give away or recycle or throw away? It’s an issue faced by those of us in the older generation who are making plans for the future that can
0MEDICAL MACHINATIONS
Our bodies, along with our minds, change over time and it is up to us to keep them functioning at an optimum level as long as we can consciously choose to do that. Benjamin Franklin is credited with the saying that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” and that seems to
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