#give it a 60% chance the supervisor asks me a question and something within me snaps and i just start biting/j

[possiblytracker]

academia win(?)! this weasel turned in their dissertation

[back-and-totheleft]

INSIDE a flimsy temporary office on a dusty movie lot here, a young man sits in front of a computer, showing off a three-dimensional rendering of the collapse of the World Trade Center. It was assembled by merging the blueprints for the twin towers — the before-picture, you might say — with a vast collection of measurements, including some taken with infrared laser scans from an airplane 5,000 feet above Lower Manhattan, just days after 9/11.

With a few clicks, Ron Frankel, who has the title pre-visualization supervisor for Oliver Stone's new 9/11 film, begins to illustrate the circuitous path that five Port Authority police officers took into the trade center's subterranean concourse, until the towers above them fell, killing all but two.

As Mr. Frankel speaks, behind his back a burly man has wandered through the door. He is Will Jimeno, one of the two officers who survived. He has been a constant presence on the movie set, scooting from here to there in a golf cart, bantering with the actor playing him and with Mr. Stone, answering questions and offering suggestions — a consultant and court jester. But he has never seen this demonstration before, he says, pulling up a chair.

Mr. Frankel, continuing with his impromptu show-and-tell, says the floor beneath Mr. Jimeno, Sgt. John McLoughlin and their three fellow officers dropped some 60 feet, creating a 90-foot ravine in the underground inferno. The difference between instant death and a chance at life, for each of the men, was a matter of inches.

Mr. Jimeno sits quietly, absorbing what he's just seen and heard. His eyes moisten. "I didn't know this," he says. "I didn't know this. I didn't know there was a drop-off here. This is an explanation I never knew about." He pauses. "We try not to ponder on it, because we're alive. But it answers some questions. That, really, played a big part in us being here." The countless measurements taken and calculations made by scientists and government agencies helped ground zero rescue workers pinpoint dangerous areas in the weeks after the attacks. The data also provided a fuller historical record of how the buildings collapsed and lessons for future architects and engineers.

Only a movie budgeted as mass entertainment, though, could harness all that costly information to reconstruct the point of view of two severely injured and bewildered men, who didn't even know the twin towers had been flattened until rescuers lifted them to the surface many hours later.

Their story, and those of their families, their rescuers and the three men killed alongside them, is the subject of Mr. Stone's "World Trade Center," which Paramount plans to release on Aug. 9.

The quandary that Paramount executives face is a familiar one now, a few months after Universal's "United 93" became the first 9/11 movie to enter wide theatrical release: How do you market a movie like this without offending audiences or violating the film's intentions? Carefully of course, but "there's no playbook," said Gerry Rich, Paramount's worldwide marketing chief. In New York and New Jersey, for example, there will be no billboards or subway signs, which could otherwise hit, quite literally, too close to home. And the studio is running all of its materials by a group of survivors to avoid offending sensibilities.

But Paramount, naturally, wants as wide an audience as possible for this film.

Nicolas Cage, who plays the taciturn Sergeant McLoughlin, says the movie is not meant to entertain. "I see it as storytelling which depicts history," he says. "This is what happened. Look at it. 'Yeah, I remember that.' Generation after generation goes by, they'll have 'United 93,' 'World Trade Center,' to recall that history."

Whether Mr. Stone set out to make a historical drama or a dramatic history isn't entirely clear. Mr. Jimeno and Mr. McLoughlin, who have both since retired from the Port Authority, say the script and the production took very few liberties except for the sake of time compression.

"We're still nervous," Mr. Jimeno said last fall, after shooting had shifted from New York and New Jersey to an old airplane hangar near Marina del Rey. "It's still Hollywood. But Oliver — it's to the point where he drives me crazy, trying to get things right."

There are many people of course who have been driven a little crazy for other reasons by some of Mr. Stone's more controversial films, "JFK," "Natural Born Killers" and "Nixon" chief among them. But in several interviews, sounding variously weary, wounded and either self-deprecating or defensive, Mr. Stone spoke as if his days of deliberate provocation were behind him.

"I stopped," he says simply. "I stopped."

His new film, he says, just might go over as well in Kansas as in Boston, or, for that matter, in Paris or Madrid. "This is not a political film," he insists. "The mantra is 'This is not a political film.' Why can't I stay on message for once in a while? Why do I have to take detours all the time?"

He said he just wants to depict the plain facts of what happened on Sept. 11. "It seems to me that the event was mythologized by both political sides, into something that they used for political gain," he says. "And I think one of the benefits of this movie is that it reminds us of what actually happened that day, in a very realistic sense."

"We show people being killed, and we show people who are not killed, and the fine line that divides them," he continues. "How many men saved those two lives? Hundreds. These guys went into that twisted mass, and it very clearly could've fallen down on them, and struggled all night for hours to get them out."

By contrast Paul Haggis is directing the adaptation of Richard Clarke's book on the causes of 9/11, "Against All Enemies," for the producer John Calley and Columbia Pictures.

Asked if that weren't the kind of film he might once have tried to tackle, Mr. Stone first scoffs: "I couldn't do it. I'd be burned alive." Then he adds: "This is not a political film. That's the mantra they handed me."

Mr. Stone says he particularly owes his producers, Michael Shamberg and Stacy Sher, for taking a chance on him at a time when he had gone cold in Hollywood after a string of commercial and critical disappointments culminating in the epic "Alexander" in 2004. "They believed in me at a time when other people did not, frankly," he says. " 'Alexander' was cold-turkeyed in this town, I think unfairly, but it was, and I took a hit. Nobody's your friend, nobody wants to talk to you."

Mr. Stone came forward asking to direct "World Trade Center" just about a year ago. He decided it would require a different approach from, say, "JFK." "The Kennedy assassination was 40 years ago, and look at the heat there, a tremendous amount of heat," he says. "I was trying to do my best to give an alternative version of what I thought might have happened, but it wasn't understood. It was taken very literally. 'Platoon,' I went back to a Vietnam that I saw quite literally, but it was a twisted time in our history.

"This — this is a fresh wound, and it had to be cauterized in a certain way. This is a very specific story. The details are the details are the details."

The details that led to the movie's making began in April 2004, when Andrea Berloff, a screenwriter, pitched a story about Mr. Jimeno's and Mr. McLoughlin's "transformation in the hole" to Ms. Sher and Mr. Shamberg. Ms. Berloff, who had no produced credits, was candid about two things:

"I didn't want to see the planes hit the buildings. We've seen enough of that footage forever. It's not adding anything new at this point. I also said I don't know how to end the movie, because there are 10 endings to the story. What happened to John and Will in that hospital could be a movie unto itself. Will flatlined twice, and was still there on Halloween. And John was read his last rites twice."

The producer Debra Hill, who had optioned the rights to the two men's stories, was listening in on the line. When Ms. Berloff was done, she recalls, Ms. Hill said, "I don't want to speak out of turn, but I think we should hire you."

Ms. Berloff and Mr. Shamberg headed to New York to meet with the two officers and their families, and to visit both the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where the men had once patrolled, and ground zero. In long sessions with the Jimenos in Clifton, N.J., and with the McLoughlins in Goshen, N.Y., Ms. Berloff says, she quickly learned that both families, despite the nearly three years that had elapsed, remained emotionally raw. "Within 20 minutes of starting to talk they were losing it," she says. "We all just sat and cried together for a week."

Before leaving, Ms. Berloff says, she felt she had imposed on, exhausted and bonded with the two families so much that she warned them that in all likelihood she would not be around for the making of the movie. "I had to say, 'The writer usually gets fired, so I can't guarantee I'll be there at the end,' " she recalls. "But I'd recorded the whole thing, and I said they shouldn't have to go through this with a bunch of writers. They'd have the transcripts to work from."

Ms. Berloff returned to Los Angeles, stared at her walls for a month, she says, and then wrote a script in five weeks, turning it in two days before her October wedding.

Ms. Hill died of cancer the following March. Mr. Shamberg and Ms. Sher moved ahead, circulating the script to Kevin Huvane at Creative Artists Agency, and to his partners Bryan Lourd and Richard Lovett. Mr. Lourd gave it to Mr. Stone, Mr. Lovett to his client Mr. Cage.

The agency also represents Maria Bello, who plays Mr. McLoughlin's wife, Donna, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who plays Alison Jimeno. Ms. Gyllenhaal, who'd just seen "Crash," suggested Michael Peña, who made a lasting impression in a few scenes as a locksmith with a young daughter. (Mr. Peña did a double-take, he confesses, upon hearing that Mr. Stone was directing a 9/11 movie: "I'm like, let me read it first — just because you're aware of the kind of movies that he does.")

Given the need to shoot exteriors in New York in September, the cast and crew raced to get ready for shooting. The actors aimed for accuracy in different ways. Mr. Cage says he focused on getting Mr. McLoughlin's New York accent right, and spent time in a sense-deprivation tank in Venice, Calif., to get a hint of the fear and claustrophobia one might experience after hours immobile and in pain in the dark. Mr. Peña all but moved in with Mr. Jimeno.

Ms. Gyllenhaal had her own problems to solve. That April she had stepped on a third rail, saying on a red carpet at the Tribeca Film Festival that "America has done reprehensible things and is responsible in some way" for 9/11. She apologized publicly, then met privately with the Jimenos, offering to withdraw if they objected to her involvement. "We started to get into politics a little bit, and Will said, 'I don't care what your politics are,' " she recalls.

With Mr. Jimeno and Mr. McLoughlin vouching for the filmmakers, more rescuers asked to be included, meaning not only that dozens of New York uniformed officers would fly to Los Angeles to re-enact the rescue of the two men, but that there were more sources of information to replace Ms. Berloff's best guesses with vivid memories.

Ms. Bello, who had gone to St. Vincent's Hospital on 9/11 with her mother, a nurse, and waited in vain for the expected deluge of injured to arrive, contributed a scene after learning from Donna McLoughlin of a poignant encounter she had had while waiting for her husband to arrive at Bellevue.

Some of the film's most fictitious-seeming moments are authentic. Mr. Jimeno's account of his ordeal included a Castaneda-like vision in which Jesus appeared with a water bottle in hand. But Mr. McLoughlin recalled no hallucinations, or nightmares, or dreams: only thoughts of his family. "He kept saying I'm sorry — 20 years in the job, never gotten hurt, and here we go and I'm not going to be there for you," Ms. Berloff says. "So we tried to dramatize that."

Nearly everything else in the movie is straight out of Mr. Jimeno's and Mr. McLoughlin's now oft-told story: the Promethean hole in the ground, with fireballs and overheated pistol rounds going off at random; the hundreds of rescuers, with a few standouts, like the dissolute paramedic with a lapsed license who redeems himself as he digs to reach Mr. Jimeno.

And the former marine who leaves his job as a suburban accountant, rushes to church, then dons his pressed battle fatigues, stops at a barbershop for a high-and-tight, heads downtown past barricades saying he's needed and winds up tiptoeing through the perilous heap calling out "United States Marines" until Mr. Jimeno hears him and responds. Mr. Stone says he is adding a note at the end of the film, revealing that the marine, David Karnes, re-enlisted and served two tours of duty in Iraq, because test audiences believed he was a Hollywood invention.

Reality can be just as gushingly sentimental as the sappiest movie, Mr. Stone acknowledges, especially when the storytellers are uniformed officers in New York who lived through 9/11. And particularly when it comes to Mr. Jimeno and Mr. McLoughlin, who have struggled with the awkwardness of being singled out as heroes when so many others died similarly doing their duty, and when so many more rescued them.

"You could argue the guys don't do much, they get pinned, so what," Mr. Stone says. "There will be those type of people. I say there is heroism. Here you see this image of these poor men approaching the tower, with no equipment, just their bodies, and they don't know what the hell they're doing, and they're going up into this inferno, they're like babies. You feel saddened, you feel sorry for them. They don't have a chance."

Mr. Cage says he once mentioned to Mr. Stone that their audience had lived through 9/11: "That it's not like 'Platoon,' where most of us don't know what it's like to be in the jungle."

"He said, 'Well what's your point?' " Mr. Cage says. "And my point is that we all walk into buildings every day, and we were there, and we saw it on TV, so this is going to be very cathartic and a little bit hard for people."

Despite its fireballs, shudders and booms, Mr. Stone's film is also unusually delicate, from the shadowy intimacy of the officers' early-morning awakenings to the solemnity of their ride downtown in a commandeered city bus, to the struggle of their wives to cope with hours of uncertainty and then with false reports of their husbands' safety.

"It's not about the World Trade Center, really. It's about any man or woman faced with the end of their lives, and how they survive," Mr. Stone says. "I did it for a reason. I did it because emotionally it hit me. I loved the simplicity and modesty of this movie.

"I hope the movie does well," he adds, "even if they say 'in spite of Oliver Stone.' "

-David M. Halbfinger, "Oliver Stone's 'World Trade Center' Seeks Truth in the Rubble," The New York Times, July 2 2006 [x]

[bambinadallospazio]

Hi! I have a dilemma. I am entering my 4th (last!) year of undergrad (US student). Recently I have been becoming more aware of issues of illiteracy in this world. I have also encountered people who don't read a lot and don't love literature. And I’ve realized that one can live a wonderfully fulfilling life without literature. So now I’m at a point where I believe in the importance in reading, but for some reason I’ve lost my unabashed, unbridled obsessive love for literature (1/3)

and I don’t know exactly where it went. I think it has something to do with realizing it isn’t unquestionably the most important thing in the world. On the other hand, I think reading can give people a freedom to think and wonder that is beautiful. After reading your about me with your enthusiasm for literature I was wondering if you had any insight because I’d really like to get my love and enthusiasm for literature back, especially going into my last year of ug where I know I’ll get (2/3) frustrated with my major (history & literature) at some point for sure. Maybe you know how to get this love back? Thanks for listening

First of all, thank you so much for your question! I’m really honored that you’ve chosen to come to me for such an issue.

As for your dilemma: believe me, I understand. I come from a family where nobody else really reads that much except for me. Not in the sense that reading is looked down on or discouraged: in fact, my parents have always been proud of the fact that I enjoy reading, but for the longest time I didn’t have anyone I could share this passion with and so it took a long time in developing. One could say that as much as I’ve always loved reading, I didn’t really come of age as a reader until I started university: I didn’t enjoy studying literature in high school, I never read my assigned readings in time (at times only to find out much later that it was a book I could have actually really enjoyed!), and I didn’t like the classics—I didn’t understand them. I wasn’t trained as a reader; I simply liked to read, but I had no actual guidance in finding more books that I could have enjoyed. I had actually read comparatively very little by the time I started university. (Even my studying literature was more of an accident than anything else. My BA was in Modern Languages—because I really wanted to study languages—and it offered two pathways: one was more geared towards tourism, with some exams in economics, and the other was in literature. I chose literature because I didn’t want to study economics.)

Uni was a game-changer for me. Which is really all you could hope for when you start it out, isn’t it? Maybe I just had never found anyone who taught me literature properly, or maybe high school was just too demanding, requiring me to focus on too many different subjects at the same time. I already noticed a change with my very first literature class, on French literature: I still remember the first book we were assigned—Madame de La Fayette’s La Princesse de Clèves—because I was so surprised that I’d actually liked a classic! (This coming from the person who’d already tried to read Pride and Prejudice at least 4 times and failed miserably to get to the end each time.) It was a real surprise and something that made me feel like I’d chosen the right path after all.

The real life-changing moment, however, came my second year, with my first U.S. literature class. This is one of those twist-of-fate moments that I love talking about, because it was not a given that I should have taken that class: I chose it as one of my electives, and I do not exaggerate when I say that it changed my life. Everything that I’ve done after that—consider that I’m now at the end of my MA—has stemmed from there.

Of course, as is usually the case with these stories, it all happened because of an amazing professor and her very specific approach to U.S. literature. She taught me about the power of literature. Up until that moment, I knew I loved reading; I didn’t know about the power that literature could have. The power to change the world. 

My professor taught a very specific syllabus that focused mostly on contemporary-ish (from the ‘60s onwards) U.S. ‘ethnic’ literature, with a focus on women’s voices. Her class taught me about what it means to see yourself represented in literature; how this can encourage and embolden a community; how this can change dominant perceptions of that community within the larger culture. I’m talking about African American literature, Latin@ and Chican@ literature, Asian American literature, Native American literature, all of which flourished massively following the civil rights movement.This class taught me what it means—and how crucial it is—to have a voice. It taught me what the literary canon is, and how important it is to challenge those reading lists they assign you in high school and push them to include more women’s voices, more voices from people with disabilities, different sexual orientations, different origins. Simply, how much it means to include as many different experiences and existences as possible into what we consider worthy of being taught. And how much what we see as part of the larger culture affects the way people see themselves and the way they see and treat others. If you read about the experience of someone who is different than you, hopefully you’ll be more empathetic towards a person with those characteristics when you meet them in real life (and there are studies that have proved this). Her classes motivated me to branch out in my readings, to try to include as much of the world as possible. (Naturally, I took many more classes with her, and she was my supervisor for my BA and now for my MA thesis. She was basically the reason I stayed on at my university for my MA.)

I was very lucky in my university career. But even though my professor was the main factor in enhancing my love for literature, she was not the only one. In fact, Tumblr helped a lot, too! Incidentally, I got on Tumblr at around the same time as I took her first class. (You see, this all worked out so perfectly. @the-library-and-step-on-it, @ablogwithaview, @dukeofbookingham.) People who blog about books and who share what they’re reading just naturally help you broaden your interests and learn about more books that you could like. I’ve become less and less active on Tumblr over the years, but the reason I’ve stayed on is really Booklr and those blogs in particular.

Now, to return to your question: I know very well that reading isn’t that important to many people, and that they get on perfectly fine without it. I know and love many of those people in my personal life. But I believe that their lives could be enhanced by reading, and that many of them don’t read simply because they never learned how. Which doesn’t mean that they’re illiterate, just that they have no idea how to go about finding books that they could enjoy and branching out from there. Or, as is the case with my parents, they could read more if their jobs were not as taxing and their daily preoccupations as exhausting. (I’m proud to say my mom has become more of a reader in recent years as I’ve been the one gifting her books or checking them out of the library for her.)

This is not to say that these people don’t have a right not to read. Everyone is free to do as they wish, of course. It’s just that often we believe we’ve had a say in determining our interests and habits, when really they are more the result of what we’ve been lucky—or unlucky—enough to have been exposed to, or have had the means to afford, as well as the time to devote to.

Reading may not be the most important thing in the world, but I believe it is of vital importance. Reading feeds our imaginations, and our imaginations shape what happens in the world around us. This is something that Gloria Anzaldúa, a Chicana feminist, writer, and poet, has said so much better than I ever could in her seminal book Borderlands/La Frontera: “Nothing happens in the ‘real’ world unless it first happens in the images in our heads.” This is something I’ve come back to again and again, and I fiercely stand by it.

As for issues of actual illiteracy, remember that a lot of what us Westerners view as ‘illiterate’ cultures actually have really rich storytelling traditions, going back for centuries! So everything that I’ve said doesn’t apply just to the written word, but to the exercise of one’s imagination, whether oral or written.

I hope this very long-winded answer can prove of some help to you, and I thank you for giving me the chance to publicly share all this!

[gyrlversion]

PROF STEPHEN WESTABY explains how the NHS is DOOMED

After 35 years on the front line of British medicine, heart surgeon Stephen Westaby has become a bestselling author. Last week, in the first part from his latest book, The Knife’s Edge, he explained how a head injury sustained when playing rugby removed both fear and inhibitions – and turned him into a brilliant surgeon. Today, he tells of his fears for the NHS – and offers his blueprint to save it. 

Professor Stephen Westaby, pictured, has worked in the NHS for the past 35 years. He fears the health service, which was founded three weeks before he was born, may be doomed

What do Albert Einstein and our treasured NHS have in common? They were both brilliant for their time, but when they reached 70 they both died from something eminently treatable.

In Einstein’s case, it was an aortic aneurysm for which he persistently refused surgery. For the NHS, I believe, it is the ‘free for all at the point of delivery’ principle that seems impossible to sustain – because Britain’s population is expanding and ageing in tandem and only a proportion of us pay taxes to fund it.

I was born three weeks after the NHS was started and I have always been its greatest champion, but the now deep-seated problems with the service were palpable the day my mother died.

She was 92 and had dementia and severe Parkinson’s, and although my dad was deaf and virtually blind, at 94 he remained my mother’s constant companion. They were happy in their own home.

It was March 2016 when it became clear from her agitation and heavy breathing that the end was near. My father knew the score.

We all wanted her to be comfortable and I knew how to achieve that. When my grandfather was dying from heart failure, his kindly GP came to the house to dispense morphine which helped him on his way. As a junior doctor in the 1970s, I did the same for many desperate patients. It is what compassionate doctors do: it is end-of-life care and common decency.

We wanted Mum to slip away peacefully in her own home with the dignity she deserved…

I call 111 and a dialogue of incomprehensible stupidity begins. The call-handler reads out her lines and a barrage of wholly inappropriate questions. I think to myself: I am a doctor, I know what the patient needs. To remain polite I hold back on my frustration. She is only doing her job.

Prof Westaby, aged 12 in 1960 along with his mother, was with her when she passed away in March 2016 aged 94. Prof Westaby, despite being a renowned heart surgeon, had to speak to an NHS call handler who asked ‘inane questions’ before eventually sending a doctor, by which time it was too late

I’m passed to the supervisor, who asks the same inane questions, and eventually I get to speak to a doctor. After some persuading, they agree to send out the single GP who is covering the whole region. It’s ridiculous. I just want my poor mother to have some morphine.

Ten minutes before the GP arrives, and nearly five hours after I’d sought help, my mother’s breathing changes and I know she doesn’t need the doctor any more.

At that moment I felt the system I’d toiled in without a single day of sick leave for more than 40 years had finally let me down. The very sympathetic locum GP was profoundly embarrassed. She described the system as in chaos.

It seemed a fitting testament to a broken NHS. It made no difference that our family was full of doctors. No one was there to help.

To save the NHS we need to pay for it 

In the 1990s my colleagues and I each performed 500 to 600 heart operations a year. We were a finely honed production line of cardiac surgery, with a great team and excellent results.

But over the years political correctness has taken hold. We were told we should be spending more time on surgical training, attending outreach clinics in far-flung general hospitals or participating in management meetings. Anything, in fact, apart from doing what we had been trained to do.

Now the six surgeons at my old hospital, part of the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, each perform about 150 operations per year, fewer than 1,000 operations a year between all of them.

It is clear to me that the NHS needs a radical reboot to ensure we are training enough of our own doctors and nurses, and it clearly needs to support innovation, despite the costs

It is sad because those of us at the sharp end really did want the NHS to be the best. But in my career I have seen much to be critical of: thousands of hospital bed closures over the past decade, the disintegration of mental health and social services, and the damaging alienation of the medical and nursing professions.

And the perpetual overseas recruitment drive that aims to poach trained staff from the developing world is a disgrace.

My own doctor nephews have been working happily in Australia, while only doctors from poor countries want to work in the NHS – and it shows.

We are busy trying to attract medical and nursing staff from Asia and Africa, when these countries need them at home.

It is clear to me that the NHS needs a radical reboot to ensure we are training enough of our own doctors and nurses, and it clearly needs to support innovation, despite the costs.

Almost two decades ago I helped develop an alternative to heart transplantation in the form of a fully implantable heart pump, which can give years of extra life to patients. But they are still not available to the majority of those who could benefit.

Today, heart failure is the only fatal disease with a worse prognosis than cancer. The statistics also show we have higher infant mortality rates and appalling outcomes for cancer and heart attacks compared to many other countries.

All this is not because our surgeons, doctors or nurses are poor. Quite the opposite. If you cut out the bureaucracy and regulations they might be more productive.

In better-functioning healthcare systems there are many more doctors, higher nurse-to-patient ratios and vastly shorter delays to assessment and treatment. There are more scanners, and lifesaving drugs and equipment are introduced in a timely fashion, whatever their cost.

Moreover, such systems are not subject to political ping-pong.

There are excellent healthcare systems in Europe and Australia on which we could model ours.

Yes, they might be based on insurance premiums, but we pay for the NHS out of taxes anyway – it’s just a different kind of premium. These better healthcare systems don’t have to discontinue all of their elective surgery for a month because of so-called seasonal pressures, as if winter were an unexpected event.

It seems as if no one has the guts to dismantle or reform this tarnished treasure for fear of being cast into political oblivion.

We are putting in billions of pounds to transform the NHS, but who can tell you where this money goes or what it achieves? Is it any wonder we – the workers within the system – remain disillusioned?

Red tape kept my friend’s kidney from his son

The bureaucratic failings within the NHS were made shockingly apparent to me when I found myself unexpectedly operating on a very dear friend from medical school, Steve Norton. I got a call late one evening to say he was very ill and needed urgent heart surgery.

Fixing Steve was like replumbing a Victorian house. All the main pipes were buggered and those coming out of the boiler needed to be replaced. But the surgery seemed to be effective, and at 3am I went to see Steve’s wife Hilary and his family to tell them things had gone well.

At 6am I took a shower and stepped into clean theatre blues, celebrated Steve’s apparent recovery with a sausage and egg sandwich and at 7.30am joined the intensive care ward round ready for the next day.

But as part of his illness Steve had already suffered a stroke and his brain started to swell. I heard someone say: ‘If anyone can save him, Westaby can.’ But he couldn’t. Steve’s brain didn’t recover.

We are putting in billions of pounds to transform the NHS, but who can tell you where this money goes or what it achieves? Is it any wonder we – the workers within the system – remain disillusioned?

Unbeknown to me, both Hilary and her eldest son had congenital polycystic kidneys. And, when I had broken the news, she asked with remarkable composure whether he could be given his father’s functioning kidney.

An organ from his dad would provide the best possible chance of compatibility – same blood group, same genes, no rejection.

For a brief moment I thought I could generate something positive out of this disaster.

I called the director of the transplant service, only to be told that while Steve was conscious he could have voluntarily donated a kidney to his son. Now that he was dead, the family could only request that he become an organ donor and then any transplantable organs would go to the national donor pool.

Those were the rules. The transplant authorities would not allow Steve’s kidney to be used for his son, nor given to Hilary, who was close to needing a transplant herself. Steve died peacefully, surrounded by his family. Because of the bureaucracy, all his organs died with him.

Where was the NHS when I needed it? 

When I urgently needed prostate surgery in my late 60s, the best the NHS could offer me, still a busy doctor with decades of service, was a one-year wait for surgery. During that time I’d have needed to continue working with a catheter and a plastic bag full of urine strapped to my leg. I was not prepared to endure the wait so, regrettably, I arranged the procedure privately.

And then, aged 68, discomfort and deformity in my right hand – where the surgical instruments smacked into my palm – forced me to finally curtail my career.

I might no longer be cutting people up but I still work hard for the NHS I passionately believe in.

I’m part of a group working to create a rehabilitation campus in Oxford allowing people to be quickly and safely discharged from hospital after surgery. And despite my grumblings, I remain resolute that British healthcare is up there with the best in the world.

When I trained, then during the early years of my consultant career, we worked in a supportive environment alongside teams brimming with enthusiasm.

Although I was repeatedly chastised for going off piste to save lives, it was usually with the wag of a finger and a grin, followed by the profound gratitude of a relieved family.

I remain resolute that British healthcare is up there with the best in the world

These days it would be instant ‘gardening leave’. So who takes these chances now?

Would I train in cardiac surgery in the current era? Sadly the answer is no.

Would I do it again with my old expansive practice in a well-equipped centre, within an environment where safety mattered more than money? You bet.

I gained inordinate pleasure from helping frightened patients and their families, as well as enormous satisfaction simply from the technical aspects of repairing a failing heart and watching a person walk out of the hospital into a new life.

Fragile lives made better. But we shouldn’t have to jump through hoops for that privilege. 

Adapted by Louise Atkinson from The Knife’s Edge: The Heart And Mind Of A Cardiac Surgeon, by Professor Stephen Westaby, published by Harper Collins.

  The post PROF STEPHEN WESTABY explains how the NHS is DOOMED appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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[harrisjv]

Smart Funnelz Review and huge bonus

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[health-jobs]

5 Self Care Tips to Save Your Healthcare Career and Your Sanity

You work hard.

Day and night, evenings and weekends, holidays and celebrations. You work, giving your time and energy to take care of everybody else.

But who takes care of you? Who takes care of the healthcare provider?

You’re tired and you feel yourself burning out. There is so little of you left to give, and yet you know that your patients are relying on you to take care of them.

Your co-workers are stressed and overworked, and at home there are little and grown people depending on you to care for them also.

But you are strong. You keep on giving and caring, even when you are so exhausted your eyelids hurt. Your feet feel like they have been stepped on by a herd of elephants.

You need to be cared for; you desperately look for a break — a way to recharge.

Who is going to take care of you?

Here’s the honest truth: It will be you.

You will need to choose to care for yourself. Do it for you, to save your sanity and keep your heart soft enough to care.

If you can’t do it for you, do it for your career. A “bummed-out” health professional will not be able to care for others.

Caring for yourself is not brain surgery – it’s really simple!  It is choosing today to do one thing to fill your own tank.

Try these tips and see what happens.

The Secret Tip to Staying on Your Feet

Food, food, food! Tips on self-care always talk about food.

No surprise when you consider that the fuel you provide your body will directly impact your performance. If you eat garbage, you will feel like garbage.

You know this already; you tell your patients, I’m sure.

Eat more fruits and vegetables

Avoid sugary, processed foods

Cut back on caffeine

Avoid Sugar and Caffeine

When you eat something with sugar in it, you will feel crankier, make bad decisions, and be sluggish and unable to remember important details. Sugar makes you dumb.

Once you have cut back on your sugar intake, aim to reduce your daily caffeine. I know you work nights! I know you need a coffee to stay functional and coherent.

You’ll feel better (and sleep better!) if you at least reduce your caffeine.

Try these steps:

Add more fresh fruit and greens to your diet by bringing a green smoothie with you to work. Sip on your veggies instead of your morning, afternoon, or midnight sugar and caffeine boost

Get a fancy-dancy thermo cup with a solid straw and fill it up with one of these awesome energy boosting green smoothies:

Nobody will know what you are drinking but you. And you will (in a week or two – it takes time for your body to adjust to less sugar and caffeine) feel awesome.

Bonus tip: No more dreaded coffee breath. Your patients and co-workers will thank you. Silently, most likely.

Increase fats and proteins

Fat

Did I just say add more fat to your life? Sure thing I did!

Healthy fats such as coconut oil can:

Give you longer and more sustained energy than carbs

Act as an anti-inflammatory (Hello? Sore back, anybody?)

Function as an antibiotic and ward off illness (You work with sick people; you need all the help you can get!)

Improve your memory and cognitive function

Instead of a cup of coffee, add a tablespoon of coconut oil to a mug of hot milk with cocoa. Blend it up and it is a frothy hot chocolate that will give you sustained energy without the dreaded crash.

Protein

Eating more protein in your day will help you to stay full longer. Who has time for a decent lunch break? Protein will keep your blood sugars stable and prevent you from getting that angry, hungry feeling.

Protein also helps you to resist that box of donuts, bagels, and cupcakes sitting in the break room. You don’t’ need those bad boys. They won’t treat you well.

Instead try to:

Eat up to 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up.

Scramble 2-3 eggs with a side of spinach, zucchini, bacon, or sausage.

Bring a small container to work with (allergy friendly!) nuts like walnuts, pecans, almonds or seeds like sunflower and pumpkin to nibble on throughout the day.

Eat a dish of hummus with veggie sticks at lunch to keep you going.

Throw a scoop of high quality protein powder in your green smoothie. You wont’ believe the energy this will give your body.

Eating extra protein in a day can also help you lose weight. But it can make you thirsty. Which leads to….

Drink Water

I know, I know. Healthcare providers don’t pee. You have often skipped bathroom breaks for 12+ hours. But I hope you eventually go home, yes?

So when you are on your way home, fill up a giant bottle with water and start chugging. Your body is made up of 60% water, and you have run, sweated, and talked most of that moisture out of your body. It’s time to replenish.

A tall glass of ice water with a squirt of lemon or lime is refreshing and surprisingly rejuvenating. Try it when you first get home.

I know you can’t be running to the bathroom all shift, so be smart. Drink more water when you are off duty.

The Key to Not Burning Out

Did you know that the health care profession is considered to be the 5th most stressful job in North America?

That’s your daily life. No wonder you are feeling stressed.

I’ll give you 3 quick tips that won’t take much time to help you to defuse that stress. I know you don’t have hours of free time for mani-pedis and weekend getaways!

Meditate

Give yourself 5 minutes. You know you have 5 minutes each day. That’s how long it’s taking you to read this article or check the latest scoop on Game of Thrones.

Lock yourself in the bathroom on your coveted lunch break. Sit in your car before heading into your house. Get off the bus one stop early and walk home. Put some relaxing music in your headphones and block out the noise.

Breathe.

List the things you are thankful for, even if they are small. Gratitude resets our minds and reduces anxiety.

Journal

I don’t mean writing long, emotional diary entries like in junior high. Just a quick 5 minutes of jotting down:

What you did

What you felt

Your goals

What you are thankful for

A simple daily journal entry in a notebook or on your phone can:

Clear your emotions

Increase your creativity

Help you figure out your future

Sleep better

Improve your relationships

Just quickly writing down the highlights of your day can remind you of why you are doing what you are doing. You are a helper. Making a note on how you helped somebody today will give you courage to help someone tomorrow.

Take a Break

Please do, dear hardworking Caregiver. You need to give yourself a break.

I know it is hard.

So many people depend on you, but somewhere in your day or your week, give yourself permission to relax.

You do get days off…sometimes.

Spend some time in nature. Turn off your phone for 24 hours and take a break from the Internet and news that constantly hits you with the harsh realities of the world.

You know life can be horrible. You see it everyday. But it’s not all ugly.

There is beauty and you need, more than anybody, to keep on seeing the beauty that is still present.

Give yourself a chance to relax and see beauty in nature, in your children, in your spouse, in art, in music.

Beauty is nature’s antidote for burn out. I prescribe a regular dose.

Hospitals are chock full with emotionally charged situations. No matter what department you work in, tempers can flare and things get ugly with patients, co-workers, and supervisors. Working in healthcare exposes you to messy situations.

An Effective Strategy for When Tempers Flare and Bedpans Fly

Here are 7 strategies to keep yourself safe when people are getting angry and in your face.

Take a step back. Literally. Putting an extra foot of space between you a person who is upset prevents the person from feeling crowded and reduces their anxiety. (Also, they can’t hit you as easily. Sad reality.)

Keep eye contact, but not in an aggressive way. Try looking directly in their eyes for 5-6 seconds at a time before breaking eye contact briefly. This relays honesty and compassion. When you look at a person, try to SEE him or her as hurting and upset. Picture your sweet 2-year-old and feel empathy.

Relax your facial expression, unpurse your lips, return your eyebrows to a resting position (not raised or scowling). If you look angry, they will just get angrier!

Remain calm. You are the logical, reasonable one right now. You are in control of the situation. Lower the tone of your voice. Don’t get shrill! Speak slower. Use the person’s first name – this helps them to feel like a person.

Ask gentle questions and practice empathetic listening. Helpful phrases include: “Can you tell me what happened?” “I can understand why that is upsetting” or “That sounds really tough.”

Don’t argue. It won’t help anything! Apologize if you are in the wrong and a patient’s meds are late. Reassure the patient that you will take care of the situation as best you can.

Let it go! Just like Elsa from Frozen, it is hard to be the focus of anger. After you leave the unpleasant situation, take a deep breath. Blow it out. Pat yourself on the back for handling it well. Recognize that you probably feel tight and upset from those emotions. That’s okay. You are safe now, and the situation is finished.

The Surprising Way to Make Work Feel like a Party

Yeah, yeah! Who doesn’t like a little fun?

Forbes magazine reports that adding fun to your workplace reduces sick calls, increases your productivity, and cuts back on stress.

So cut loose!

But remember you are still a professional, so cut loose appropriately.

Remember that there is no place for jokes and humor that demean and insult other people. Humor at another’s expense will not have any positive effect.

Zero. Don’t go there.

But a smile, a harmless joke, and a shared laugh will make those around you happier. Those who spread joy often receive joy.

Aim to do one kind and unnecessary act for a co-worker or patient everyday. Write a little note to a co-worker thanking her for something she did. Celebrate with a patient for his progress.

Take some time to laugh, to see the funny side of things. Health care professionals are famous for being able to handle morbid situations with humor.

If you are too busy to bring joy to another person, you are missing the mark. Take some time today to spontaneously – or plan to – help another person and bring him a smile. This will make your workday fun!

The Best Way to Know Where You End

You are only one person. Taking care of you will mean knowing your limits. That’s your responsibility. Nobody will respect your boundaries if you have none.

Say no to the things that don’t really matter, so you can say yes to the things that do. It’s okay to say “No” to covering a shift for a co-worker who wants to go to a concert. Later you can say “yes” to being there for an ill family member.

You need to define both for yourself, your patients, and your co-workers what are your duties and responsibilities. When you are going above and beyond your responsibilities, you feel emotionally and physically exhausted. And you might feel used.

Then you end up not being able to give anymore.

Don’t go there.

Healthy boundaries protect you and will prolong your career.

You can say no and still be a nice person. You can say no and still take care of your patients. Try to:

Say no respectfully: “I know you want to chat, but I can’t right now.”

Say no and give a reason: “I can’t take your shift; I am already committed to another event that weekend.”

Say no with a rain check: “I can’t go out for drinks tonight, but I would love to go down to the cafeteria with you right now.”

Taking on others’ concerns and life issues will burn you out. It is so tempting because you are a CAREGIVER! Bah!

But being a caregiver does not mean you are a superhero. Even Superman has to say no.

Sometimes caring for somebody means letting them figure it out on their own.

Conclusion

What do you think? Are your healthcare career and your sanity worth saving?

You have so much to give to those who need you. We need you. The world needs people like you who care.

Can I just stop and say, “Thank you”?

Thank you for caring. Thank you for being the person who holds hands and cleans up bodily fluids. Thank you for dealing with all the crap, literally and figuratively.

But don’t forget you.

You matter.

It doesn’t have to be hard and it doesn’t take much time to add a few simple self-care strategies to your day.

Will you do it? Cut back on the sugar, take some time to meditate, have fun, set boundaries.

Just do one thing for you today. What will it be?

from Health Jobs via Εργασία Για Όλους on Inoreader http://ift.tt/2APDX7o via IFTTT

[alysworks]

What to Do When You Get Negative Feedback at Work

Getting negative feedback is never easy—even if you know it’s coming. Even worse, being blindsided when you think you’re doing a great job can be a major confidence hit. But here’s the thing: Pretty much everyone gets constructive criticism at some point during their career. This included the most successful people you know.  In fact, the best managers are ones who are able to let you know in a friendly but firm way exactly how you can improve, take your work to the next level, and better manage your responsibilities. In a sense, getting negative feedback can actually be a good thing, even though it might not feel like it at the time.

Here, we asked HR pros to tell us exactly how to handle the moments, days, and weeks after receiving negative feedback, plus how to take it all in stride.

1. Don’t take it personally.

Yes, you’ve probably heard this advice before, but there’s a reason for that. “Often, employees take negative feedback to mean their leader doesn’t like them,” says Krishna Powell, executive coach and HR consultant. Most of the time, this is not the case at all. “Feedback is given because your leader sees you have the ability to do better, to become greater, or to master your skillset,” she notes. When you think of it that way, it’s actually sort of like a compliment. Of course, that doesn’t make it easier to hear, but focusing on the fact that your boss knows you can perform at a higher lever can help you see that negative feedback is actually not the worst thing in the world.

“The most important thing to remember is feedback gives the receiver power. Power to manage perceptions because feedback can tell you how people view you. Power to become better or stronger because feedback reveals your area of weakness. And feedback can give you power to control your career because it can redirect the path you’re on.” It’s natural to be bummed out at first, but with some mental reframing, you can get to a much more positive place.

6 Leadership Skills You Never Knew You Needed

2. Make sure you’re totally clear on the issue.

Most managers don’t enjoy giving negative feedback, so a conversation about your performance that’s less than glowing might be on the shorter side. Add into that your potential emotional response, and there’s a lot of room for miscommunication. “Sometimes it’s difficult to listen and to retain everything you hear in a meeting when your emotions may be off-kilter,” explains Jana Tulloch, C.P.H.R., HR Manager for Develop Intelligence.

This is a good opportunity to practice active listening to make sure you and your boss are understanding each other clearly. “Try restating the issue back to your manager to confirm you’re on the same page about the issue and what is expected going forward. This provides an opportunity to clarify any misunderstandings, as well as ask any questions,” she says. The last thing you want is to be working away on correcting the wrong issue.

3. If you disagree, do so with tact.

It’s a common response to immediately feel defensive after receiving negative feedback, and the truth is that mistakes do happen. In feedback situations, however, they don’t happen that often, so it’s important to make sure you’re definitely being critiqued in error before saying that you believe the feedback you’re getting is wrong. First, be completely sure that you understand the feedback that’s been given and the reasoning behind it. If you’re confident that the negative feedback was given in error and you decide to say something about it, “it is imperative that you push back with diplomacy and tact,” says Tawanda Johnson, CEO of RKL Resources, a national Human Resources Consulting firm. “Supervisors are often juggling many hats and sometimes things fall through the cracks. They are human. Strong supervisors will own up to their mistakes and will thank the employee for bringing something to their attention.”

What Is Emotional Intelligence, and Why Everyone Needs It

4. Show initiative ASAP.

If the feedback is not wrong, the best thing you can do moving forward is come up with a plan to fix the problem. Take initiative and show you care about improving. “If you want to continue to grow in your career, either within your current company or with another, you should respond back to your supervisor within a couple of days,” says Dorris Hollingsworth, President of Evergreen HR Group, an HR and business consulting firm in the Atlanta market. “Ideally, you will have some time to think about the feedback and identify one or two things you can do to address the issues raised.” For example, if you’ve been told you need to improve your communication style, then you might talk to a peer about how they communicate on their work projects and then compare that information to what you normally do. Then, share your findings with your boss. “Let your supervisor know that you have looked at other ways to communicatewith a team and plan to adopt some of the methods in your work,” says Hollingsworth. “Lastly, put it into practice.”

5. Think about the long game.

It’s a good idea to follow up in a more long-term way, as well, since often it takes some work to make real change in habits. “After 30 to 60 days, I always recommend people follow up on the negative feedback they have received,” says Powell. “You should say something like, ‘I have given a great deal of thought to the feedback you have given me and I have made the following changes,’” she suggests. This shows that you took the feedback to heart and importantly, that you care about improving. Chances are, if you’re committed to making a change, some very positive feedback awaits in your next performance review.

[kitdrago]

Conventions, Staffing, and things to do.  Part 2 - Where’s the staff?

One of the amazing things that fan conventions seem to bring out is a lot of that volunteer spirit. Most conventions have an overabundance of people willing to come and donate their time to the event purely for ensuring that the event happens.  Conventions depend on it, survive on it.  That’s one of many reasons why most of them exist as non-profits in some format or another. I can honestly say that every convention I have every volunteered for would not exist if they had to hire staff as contractors or employees.  However, it’s a double-edged sword.  While many of a volunteer staff do it simply for seeing the event succeed; most, if not all, do want some sort of benefit in return for their service.

This benefit could be as simple as just getting free access to the event, all the way to a free room & board.  Regardless of what their looking for, they deserve it!  The question is can the event support it financially.  My own event has a shoe string budget, but as mentioned previously, I will always ensure that every staff member has no-excuse to not be fed and hydrated over the weekend.  One way or another, I will fit that into the budget.  It would blow, but I’d rather have a little less lighting or effects in main events, a couple less rooms in the hotel, or ask the leaders of the event to give up a perk to make sure everyone has food.

So how do you find staff for your event, and how to you get them to join?  Most of the “repeat staffers” will tell you that they got asked by someone, enjoyed it, so they just keep coming back.  They might also tell you that they’re masochists because they keep coming back every year, sometimes several times a year, to endure the stress, abuse by attendees, and 20-60 hours’ worth of work in one weekend so they can walk away feeling a self-gratifying sense of satisfaction at accomplishing a successful event.  I myself at one point in time staffed a convention just about once every month.  

So, Step 1 – Just Ask!   Look around you at your friends and associates.  If you see someone that you feel has the experience or know-how to fill an open role in your event, ask them.  Tell them all about the event, what it’s about, what it does, and why you think they would be good for it.  A little word of warning though; if they are your friends, make sure they understand that if the event is causing distress and straining the friendship, they always have the right to back out.  Also make sure to maintain a strict separation between friendship and “business”.  No matter how difficult it might get inside the organization, remember its business and don’t take it into the friendship.   I have at least two friendships that are a little strained right now, but I keep reminding them that no matter what happens, outside of the event, they’re still my friend first and foremost.  Inside the event though, I am their Manager/Supervisor and ultimately that needs to be remembered.

You can also tell them that it’s not working and straining your friendship, so you’re asking them to leave.  However, I’ve found most people view that as “being fired” and they take it as such.  So, tell them how you feel and let them decide how they want to handle it.   It doesn’t happen often, but I’ve seen friendships and marriages break up over disagreements within an organization.   Always be ready to recognize when it’s time to back out or have that discussion.

Step 2 – Watch those Gofers (Gophers)!  Gofers is the term given to the attendees who decide that they want to volunteer to help for a brief time, but not really want to be staff.  They usually do it for small perks like free t-shirts, free attendance for next year, etc.  They’re called gofers because typically their job is to “Go for” things and tasks.  A lot of them are interested in being on staff, but they either did not realize it or did not know how to get onto staff.  Being a gofer is an effective way, and in some events the only way, to get onto the events staff.  You can volunteer throughout the weekend for a variety of departments and positions, so it gives both the gofer and the event a chance to see what you like best and how well you fill the role.  See a good gofer?  Ask them to be Staff.  

My event has a part of closing ceremonies where if a department has an opening to fill, and a gofer did an excellent job helping them, they are called up onto stage to receive an award and an invitation to return next year as staff. It’s a fantastic opportunity to showcase not only that the event cares about its gofers and does pay attention, but also to recognize the exceptional gofers.  Not to say that any gofer isn’t worth their weight in whatever incentives you give.

Step 3 – Advertise, Advertise, Advertise!   Use whatever channels you have to get the word out.  We posted our open positions onto a website, and even with several reminders in the year, we still had about 50+% of our attendee population that weren’t even aware that we had open staff positions.  Just don’t flood them with repeated calls for staff.  We schedule it into our regular social media rotation, and beginning this year we have a monthly mailing list for previous attendees willing to receive it.

Step 4 – Incentivize!   As mentioned previously, find ways to give some benefit to your staff and volunteers.  A free badge is almost a given for staff.  My event sets the free badge as a function of fulfilling the previous year’s requirements (Staff or gofer), or doing enough volunteer time during the year pre-convention to earn it.  We do that to weed out the staff applications that just want to come in to get a free badge.  Often, without that weed point I’ve seen too many staff volunteers who join just for the badge, do the bare minimum (or less), and end up being a problem.  My point, however, is that a free badge is a given.  That’s not an incentive, that’s the barest of minimums that scratch the surface of incentives.

Other, and usually more coveted incentives, include things like attendee sponsor level perks, staff only gifts or events, food (meals) and drinks, and the ever-coveted Free Hotel Room. I’ve noticed through my years of staffing that the closer you get to free room & board, the easier it is to recruit fresh staff members to the event.    Which makes total and complete sense.  Just from my own personal ideals, I expect a badge, I don’t care about a t-shirt, and gifts are fun but usually just clutter my house and end up tossed out unless they’re useful.  Food, Drink, and hopefully a Free hotel room, however, will keep me coming back every year.   Even after an unusually stressful year, or more attendee abuse than usual.   It makes my 20-60 hours’ worth of work in a weekend feel worthwhile because I don’t have to spend $500-$1000 to do it.   I’ll readily give up my t-shirt, the gifts, and sponsor level benefits if it means that I can get Free Room and Board, hands down.  Not every event can afford that though, which is why I prioritize feeding my staff as a necessity, not expendable.

Also, look at what you might be able to give them outside of the event and organization.  There are places ranging from your organization having its accounts at a credit union, which gives all your volunteers the ability to have accounts and benefits there as well; all the way up to various “group account” type programs where you can offer discount cards or coupons for things they use every day.   If you’re a 501c3, there’s lots of opportunities to find things like that on websites like techsoup.com

Ultimately, the best place to find out what your staff thinks makes their time worthwhile, is your staff.  Ask them what they would find appealing to join and what brings, or would bring them back every year.  Just be sure not to offer something that ultimately is not sustainable.  It’s very hard to provide an incentive and then take it away later without causing some heartache in the ranks.

Finding and keeping volunteer staff can be very difficult, especially for small events with minimal budgets. Free stuff, incentives, food and hotel rooms are all potential pluses in the volunteer’s balance of staffing or not. Regardless of all of that though, never ever… EVER forget to appreciate them.  Thank them every chance you get, praise their good deeds, and show them that you recognize their efforts.  Even the most well incentivized staff member won’t stick around if they don’t feel personally appreciated by the people with and above them.

Next Episode:  Part 3 – A (hopefully) short talk on… phrasing. (My biggest fail)