Fired Via E-Mail, And Other Tales Of Poor Exits PDF Print E-mail
 

Most Common Medical Practice Management Mistakes Management experts agree that there is no great way to fire someone.

The "respectful way is to let someone know in person," said Clay Parcells, regional manager with Right Management Consultants, a company that helps workers transition into new careers after they have been fired/downsized /let go/RIF'd. "No one feels good about being let go, irrespective of if they are being told in person or in an e-mail. They just gain a lot of respect as an employer of choice if it's done respectfully."

That respect can help the company's reputation. Done poorly, employees leave embittered, Siegel said. "They become the greatest unraveler of your best marketing campaigns and go into the community with nothing but negative assessments of the employer and make it difficult to recruit any new talent." *

If any of the members of this forum wonder why there seem to be so many disgruntled ex-military physicians hanging around a medical student forum, the article above explains a lot.
Click the title to read more...
 
Several of us were essentially "fired" by the military for speaking out as patient advocates for quality medical care. Instead of rewarding officers for their courage and integrity, the U.S. military medical system engaged in vicious attacks on our professional and personal lives. Some of us were ordered to get psychological evaluations for being "troublemakers"...this after up to ten years of successfully treating patients as clinical physicians, and teaching med students as professors (hard to do with serious psych issues). Some of us got Letters of Reprimand/Admonishment/Counseling with no prior notice. There was no RESPECTFUL attempt by administrative coward Colonels and Captains to understand WHY we should be sacrificing our careers and pensions to speak out for patient safety. There was no RESPECTFUL attempt to say: "O.K., you found a problem. Here's some responsibility and authority. You fix it." Instead, what we have found, to a man and a woman, is that the mindset of those currently in charge of military medicine focuses on neutralizing and destroying all sources of dissent. It goes beyond kneejerk institutional defensiveness: it is really a strong, anti-intellectual streak which is positively rewarded by the system, resulting in the stupidest and most craven attaining the highest positions on the org chart, while the smartest and bravest flee with the tattered shreds of their personal and professional dignity.

For more on the anti-intellectual nature of the military in general, read these provocative articles, published, not by a liberal rag, but by the U.S. Army War College and Army Magazine (a publication of the AUSA) http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/P...r/mastroia.htm

Occupations, Cultures, and Leadership in the Army and Air Force by (Reserve LtCol) GEORGE R. MASTROIANNI

Quote:
"There is an absolutist and anti-intellectual strain in Air Force culture (as many have observed in military culture more generally) that resonates with a view of the world as simple and clear. Confidence in the intellectual superiority of the Air Force over the other services coexists with what sometimes appears to be contempt for the rough-and-tumble of open intellectual discourse. The paradox of Air Force culture is that it can be decidedly anti-intellectual—a circumstance perhaps not uncommon in authoritarian cultures such as the military—but nevertheless convinced of its intellectual superiority. This tendency is perhaps stronger in the Air Force than in the other services.

These aspects of global Air Force culture also affect organizational forms and penetrate the thinking of the rank and file, implicitly modeling a more hierarchical, executive, personal model of decisionmaking that shapes the culture of leadership in the Air Force. The responsibility of the Air Force for controlling a component of the American strategic nuclear deterrent may also have led to broad institutional reliance on organizational models characterized by concentration and elevation of decisionmaking power in highly centralized structures."

AND
http://www.ausa.org/webpub/DeptArmyM...id/CCRN-6CCS4R

The Uniformed Intellectual and His Place in American Arms: Part I
by COL. LLOYD J. MATTHEWS, USA Ret.

Quote:
In 1890, U.S. Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan published The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783, the most influential book ever written by a serving officer with the arguable exception of Clausewitz’s On War. For this feat, his endorsing officer, Rear Adm. Franis Ramsay, rewarded him on his fitness report with the following glowing encomium: "It is not the busness of a Naval officer to write books." It is precisely this sort of attitude on the part of the bosses of military intellectuals that has led such thinkers as H. G. Wells to claim that "the professional military mind is by necessity an inferior and unimaginative mind; no man of high intellectual
quality would willingly imprison his gifts in such a calling." More amusing than Capt. Mahan’s poor fitness report but no less tragic in its import is this lament from a Navy officer passed over for promotion: "I cannot understand why I wasn’t selected: I’ve never run a ship aground; I’ve never insulted a senior officer; and I’ve never contributed [an article] to the Institute’s Proceedings."

Of note, both articles criticize the Army as well as its sister services.

General Colin Powell asserted in his Powell Doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_Doctrine)
that the U.S. military needs a plausible exit strategy before committing blood and treasure to an operation. What is your exit strategy from military medicine?

Hint: the best exit strategy, in warfare and in life, is not to enter a bad situation in the first place.

--
Written by:R. Carlton Jones, M.D.
ex-LtCol, USAF, MC
ex-Medical Director of Anesthesia, Travis AFB, CA
ex-Assistant Chief Anesthesiologist, Andrews AFB, MD
ex-Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology, USUHS
Harvard '85, USUHS '90, WHMC residency 1994
Board-Certified Anesthesiologist since 1995
Patriotic American Civilian Veteran since 1 July 2005
http://www.medicalcorpse.com
Orignally posted to Student Doctor Network Forums

*Source:author Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 10, 2006; Page F01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...090900103.html
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