MISS ELLIE

You know, it’s not so much the cards life deals you, but rather what you do with them.  This was really driven home to me by Mrs. Ellie, a new resident of one of the nursing homes I used to oversee for Baton Rouge General.    

The 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud lady, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, with her hair fashionably coifed and makeup perfectly applied, even though she is legally blind, moved to our nursing home. Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window. "I love it," she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

"Mrs. Ellie, you haven't seen the room .... just wait."

"That doesn't have anything to do with it," she replied. "Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged ... it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it ... "It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I'll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I've stored away.”  

So whenever I feel sorry about a difficult situation that life has handed me, I just remember Mrs. Ellie and “decide ahead of time” that I’ve been dealt a winning hand!

Until next time...Dr Bob

The Power of Praise

I recently read that the Grammys, the Golden Globes and Annual Academy Award shows won’t be televised this year, probably won’t even be streamed due, in part, to the Omicron pandemic but also due to a lack of interest by viewing audiences.  Were those shows more for the viewing audience or, more likely, for the performers being honored?

What a show!  An auditorium filled with world famous actors, actresses, directors, and other professionals—people that we’d say “have it all.”  Yet, they were all gathered there hoping for the one thing that their money and fame can’t buy:  The recognition of their achievements by their peers.

British philosopher Samuel Johnson once said, “Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.”  And, in this way, we are all alittle like Denzel Washington, Hallie Berry, or Ron Howard:  We all want the pleasure of seeing our achievements recognized. 

In healthcare, like most of life’s pursuits, its easy to focus on the negatives, what went wrong, what didn’t meet our expectations.  Yet daily, there are literally hundreds of opportunities to recognize and applaud what is positive, what went right, and those around us who met and exceeded our expectations.  Look around.  Catch someone being good.  Give someone that pat on the back they deserve.  Say “thanks.”  Let someone experience that same thrill that everyone at those award shows are hoping for: The recognition of their achievements by their peers.  Because life is a self-fulfilling prophecy:  Expect the success and you’ll get success.

LO’S ADVICE

Loretta Kappel and I first worked together at Baton Rouge General Medical Centers in the late 90’s.  She later ran my Geropsychiatric program at Chalmette Medical Center and still later was my Director of Marketing at HealthSouth in Austin.  She is a bonafide Cajun from Houma, one of my wife’s best friends and a terrific and supportive friend of mine.

She and I battled to take HealthSouth from #5 in the Austin market to #1, a feat we accomplished in just 3 years.  Together, we won the “President’s Award” from HealthSouth, as well as “Most Improved Hospital” and “Best Marketing Team” for the Texas Division.  Because of all we had accomplished, it was hard to imagine I’d ever leave Austin…but then came the offer from RehabCare and the opportunity to return to Lafayette.  I asked Lo for her opinion, what should I do? 

I just found this 2009 message from my old friend, written with typical Loretta spunk.  Seems appropriate for the beginning of 2022:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do that by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Good advice for all of us as we enter the new year.  Take a chance, dare to do, explore, dream, discover!  Good one, Lo! See, I DO save the good stuff! - RAP

 

Fall Down, Stand Up, Repeat

“Fall seven times and stand up eight"

(Japanese proverb)

I was only 18 and had never been so nervous, standing in the front of a large lecture hall filled with faculty and college seniors.  What was I going to say?  Did I remember the key parts of my talk?  And, most importantly, was I ever going to stop shaking?  At the University of Richmond, the pinnacle of your college experience was delivering your Senior Thesis to the faulty and other seniors.  It took most of the senior year to prepare and you couldn’t graduate without doing it.  I was presenting research Dr Ken Blick and I had done on the neurological pathways of operant learning, combining work in my dual majors of psychology and biology.  It was information I knew well, all I had to do was talk about it.  But I had to stop shaking first. 

As I began to speak, my nervousness increased and so did my shaking…then I began to feel light-headed…then the room went out of focus…and then it faded to black.  I woke up on the floor behind the podium, looking up into the faces of my two major professors and a handful of students.  I had passed out. 

I successfully struggled through the talk the following week, got a passing grade and graduated, but I never wanted to be in that situation again.  Three months later when I started graduate school at LSU, I signed up for a speech class in addition to my psychology classload.  I joined Toastmasters, a community organization of folks who met weekly to give impromptu talks and hone their speaking skills.  A year or so later, I enrolled in the Dale Carnegie Public Speaking course, a 13-week seminar on public speaking and building confidence.  On the final night, each of the 48 class members gave a 2-minute talk to the group on a random topic selected by the instructor…I remember, mine was “horses”, and at the end of the night the class voted on the best talk.  I won.  I still have the book on Abraham Lincoln -- written by Dale Carnegie and autographed by all 48 classmates -- that I received as my award.  I had taken my failure and fear and made something positive.  I may have fallen seven times, but I got up eight.

And I think of that when I consider recent reversals at my hospital.  Financial reversals have forced us to reduce our staffing, have limited our financial resources, and forced us to postpone or eliminate exciting (and needed) projects.  But if I've learned one thing about our hospital folks over the past three years, it’s that they're a resilient bunch.  Throw something bad their way, they bounce back.  Suffer a reversal, it’s “just temporary” they say.  Together, we down fall seven times and stand up eight.  So, keep the faith and keep pointed to the horizon and we’ll all get there yet.  So ask yourself:

What do you do to recover from failure?

Who do you rely on for support during tough times?

What can you do to support your team after a mistake or failure has occurred?

The Home Team

 “I have discovered in life that I can do anything, but I can’t do everything. No one can go it alone.”
- Robert Schuller -

August 2005.  I had just relocated to Austin Texas to run an inpatient rehab hospital for HealthSouth.  I hadn’t even unpacked, basically living out of my suitcase in an unfurnished one bedroom apartment downtown.  Alina had stayed behind in New Orleans because we had kids in school and other familial responsibilities that kept her there while I worked in Texas. Alina called and asked, “Have you been watching the weather?  There’s this hurricane in the Gulf that looks like it’s turning towards New Orleans.  It’s called ‘Katrina.’” 

Well, you know how that turned out.  What you don’t know is that Alina boarded up the house, packed up the kids & cats, important papers & photographs, loaded up the minivan and drove to Austin.  It took 21 hours (normally about 8) because the interstate was jammed with millions evacuating.  And the family was stuck in Austin for 6 weeks until the waters receded and she could take the kids back home.  I have hundreds of stories like that.

It’s Thanksgiving, a natural time to reflect on what we are each grateful for.  I am most thankful for my wife of 31 years who has made a home for our family, raised four terrific kids sometimes single-handedly, while I followed my consulting engagements across the country, often for years at a time.  Without Alina, we wouldn’t be a family, the kids wouldn’t have turned out as well as they have and I couldn’t have had the kind of exciting career I’ve enjoyed.  While I give her all the credit, she says we are a team, both of us and the kids,  each with our own responsibilities to the family and each other, each essential to the success of “Team Prehn”…I can do anything but I can’t do everything, no one can go it alone. A team.

And that’s what makes my hospital, The Bradley Center, a success:  Each one of us, acting in collaboration, toward the common goal of providing safe, compassionate, professional and efficient care for our patients.  So as you celebrate Thanksgiving with your friends and family, take a moment or two to reflect on your “Bradley family”:

•  Do you ask for help when needed from your team members? If so, why do you seek out those specific people?

• What are the values or beliefs you hold that allow you to help others when they are in need, professionally or personally?

• What can you do to create a strong team cohesiveness at your place of work? 

WHO FIXED THE DOOR?

George Degethoff was a talented mechanic and handyman.  One day, he took his 4-year old daughter, Denise, by the hand and walked her two doors down to the Lockwood house. 

After her husband’s death, it became a daily pleasure for “old Mrs. Lockwood” to come out the screen door onto the big house’s wraparound veranda and watch the neighborhood children play.  Only Denise and her friends hadn’t seen Mrs. Lockwood lately.  Instead, she stayed inside, looking wistfully out of the window.  Mr. Degethoff figured out her screen door hinges must have shifted, preventing the 90-year old from opening the door.

So he leapt into action.  He made the necessary repairs, then packed up his tools, grabbed his daughter’s hand and started down the porch steps.  “But Daddy,” Denise said, “you didn’t tell the lady!”  “That’s OK,” said George, “she’ll see its fixed.”  “But she won’t know you did it!”, replied Denise.

“Pumpkin,” her Daddy said, “I don’t need her to know that.  That’s between God and me…and you, too.  I didn’t do it for the praise, I did it because it needed to be done.” 

The Greek philosopher Epictetus (55 AD – 136 AD) wrote:   “Know you not that a good man does nothing for appearance sake, but for the sake of having done right?”  Mr. Degethoff understood that. 

And both Epictetus and George Degethoff understood what Walt Disney later articulated as the essence of the Disney “magic”:  Put yourself in people’s shoes…imagine what they’d like to happen…and then take action before being asked.  Walt Disney said the most important part of the formula was to take action before being asked, that was the most important ingredient in “making magic” and it was at the core of the “Disney Experience” that keeps thousands of people returning year after year to his parks.

But that’s Disneyland.  You couldn’t really “make magic” at YOUR hospital, could you? Of course you can! 

·         I saw a lady standing in the middle of our parking lot, looking bewildered.  An associate walked over to her and said “Can I help you find something?”  She was looking for the AA meeting.  The associate said, “It’s over this way” and walked her to the Multipurpose Room door.

·        Arriving for work around 7:30 am one morning, an associate ran into one of our patients waiting outside the locked lobby doors.  He had been discharged and was waiting for his ride.  The associate said, “Can I get you some water while you wait?  Do you need anything?”  The man said he needed to use the phone to call his ride and see where they were.  The associate let the man into the lobby.  And while he was on the phone, got him a bottled water from Admissions. 

I know these stories because I witnessed them.  I do not mention the associates’ names…it is enough that they know who they are.  They didn’t do it for the praise, they did it because it needed to be done.