Advances In Mentoring

When I was in Residency, the hospital administration wanted to insure that there was readiness on the part of all staff for emergencies – the campus was sprawling, so establishing readiness in the outlying areas of campus seemed reasonable.  At the time of this dictum, I was doing a dermatology rotation.  The chief of staff of the department, a wise and gifted dermatologist of probably 30 years, quipped, “Sure, we’re prepared…If we see an emergent case will slather them with Lidex (the most potent steroidal cream for topical administration), wrap ’em in Saran wrap (a method, called occlusion, which increases the therapeutic effect thus describing the most urgent and aggressive treatment a dermatologist might prescribe), and send ’em to the ER!”

 

I’ve thought a lot about that funny occurrence while thinking about integration.  True, the wise old dermatologist described what, from his perspective, was the penultimate of his therapeutic intervention, BUT, if the guy needed a pulmonologist or cardiologist, say, he’d be up the proverbial creek with no paddle.  The dermatologist saw no need to integrate…he left that up to the ER doc.  It’s that type of integration that appeals so much to me, coming from that area of emphasis…seems like we’ve discounted that it takes all kinds to make a world…rote administration of any one modality is probably a flawed way of looking at that world?

 

I had an interesting conversation recently about truth.

I mentioned during a meeting of a Writer’s Group I attended, that the group policy – to offer a presenting writer ONLY positive feedback about the presented piece – that I preferred truth on critique of my work, in whatever form it may take. This was a personal bias not widely shared by the group. The principle behind this policy was to spare the writer the “agony” of critique, since the pieces were “ex-temped” during the Group meeting.

A group participant bristled and began objecting to her presumption that I was calling the group dishonest. That got me thinking about truth and honesty and their relationship.

I guess this is what I’ve come up with. To me, truth is an innate property of an object of any sort that is immutable as is falsity. It is unchanging. Thus, in the context of critique, the truth would be precisely what the critic felt about a piece she or he has heard. The value of any critique belongs to the person critiqued.

Honesty, it seems to me, is a bit different. I see honesty as a trait or behavior of an individual in service of the truth. A person chooses honesty or dishonesty; and all the iterations that shade the trait, in human-made terms.

So, I didn’t mean to imply honesty or dishonesty of a group of people, just to explain my desires when it comes to critique. I’ve had positive and negative critique in the past that I haven’t been willing to accept. But, I always prefer unvarnished expression of other’s critique as the most helpful to my process.

Of course one needn’t be nasty about it…

 

RIP, sweetie!