|
|
|
Jarrod Shapiro, DPM
Practice Perfect Editor
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Podiatric Medicine
Surgery & Biomechanics
College of Podiatric Medicine
Western University of
Health Sciences
St. Pomona, CA |
As many of you know, I have a son who has been dancing for the past three years. For much of the time, he was doing it as a hobby, enjoying dance classes several times a week and the occasional competition. About nine months ago, he transferred to a new dance studio and has since become very serious about his dancing. At the ripe old age of nine he is even considering dance for a career. He spends about 20 hours per week training, and as he becomes stronger, he is able to do increasingly complex and difficult moves.
 Last weekend, my son and his parents had a talk about how to utilize the skills of those around him to improve. You see, he's the youngest dancer in his company and is surrounded by dancers that are older and more experienced than him. After our discussion, he understood how he could leverage his relationships with those more experienced than him to help him progress in his training.
During this same week, I had a couple of conversations with some of my students. A common theme I found during these discussions was the reticence of so many students to work as a team to decrease their work and maximize their success.  Many of my students study alone, not working with others to break up the incredibly heavy volume of information they receive from lectures. So instead of working as a team, distributing the work of a class to several people and decreasing each individual's work while allowing more time for studying, these students are working alone doing 100% of the work with 200% of the effort. Not very efficient.
The commonality between my son and my students is their ignorance of the importance and usefulness of working with one's colleagues to affect everyone's success.
Here's an example. As a faculty member of Western University of Health Sciences, I have access to a broad range of experts in many fields. One of those experts is a friend of mine, Dr. Matthew Wedel. Dr. Wedel is a paleontologist who doubles as a human anatomy professor (and happens to be one of the best professors I've met).
As an interesting and completely unrelated aside, I first met Dr. Wedel in person about three and a half years ago when I started working at the College of Podiatric Medicine, but in reality, I had known of him for almost two years prior to starting at the college. When my son was four years old, he became interested in dinosaurs, which was just fine with me since I'm a total geek about dinosaurs...love ‘em!
During the subsequent two years we watched a number of science shows about paleontology, one of which happened to sport a Dr. Matthew Wedel, sauropod expert. It was quite a surprise when I started at Western U to find out that not only was Dr. Wedel at the University, but he was also teaching anatomy to my students! Score!
As part of a paper I've been working on, I needed some anatomical images, so instead of trying to work in a vacuum, I wanted to ask one of my colleagues to assist me with access to the anatomy lab. Dr. Wedel was just the person to help, and we found a perfect specimen for my work. As a side benefit, we had an interesting discussion about paleontology, medical history, and some technology issues that would benefit me in the future as a professor at the college.
I expected a quick trip to the anatomy lab, some pictures, and little else. What I received instead was a fascinating discussion with one of the most interesting people I know.
Similarly, one week prior, I "borrowed" one of my other colleagues, Dr. Airani Santhananthan, an excellent endocrinologist who practices in the clinic next to mine. While discussing some patient issues with a group of my students, management of inpatient glucose came up. Instead of me trying to explain this concept (I'm clearly not an expert), I grabbed Dr. Santhananthan, who, lucky for us, had a few minutes between patients to do a mini-lecture on blood sugar control. My students and I benefited greatly from her expertise and willingness to teach.
Along these same lines, I have a meeting scheduled for early next week to meet with two of the University librarians to utilize their expertise in evidence-based medical practice to augment my residents' academic experiences. I'm excited to pick their brains and see a new perspective on education.
In our modern world in which knowledge of all fields is no longer possible and specialization is the rule, it only makes sense to utilize the skills of those around us. Working as part of a team is not only beneficial to get the job done, it also makes the job that much easier. And you might also learn something new along the way. Nothing is more valuable than the colleagues around us.
Best wishes,
Jarrod Shapiro, DPM
PRESENT Practice Perfect Editor
[email protected]
Get a steady stream of all the NEW PRESENT Podiatry
eLearning by becoming our Facebook Fan.
Effective eLearning and a Colleague Network await you. |
 |
This ezine was made possible through the support of our sponsors: |
|
.jpg)
