Planting seeds and making connections

Our “Monday morning discussion group” met yesterday. The plan was to discuss Ivan Illitch’s book, Medical Nemesis, but we ended-up discussing an opportunity that has opened up. One of our members is on the program committee for the eHealth2005 conference, and she asked about what services/events were geared toward students. Since there wasn’t anything officially planned, she was asked to spear-head some activities. As a result, the rest of the group was asked to help out – so, now I find myself potentially attending this year’s conference.

Quite a number of ideas were tossed around and debated, but I think we settled on creating an opportunity to allow students to think, to connect, to imagine, and to discuss ideas on what they/we want in our health care system. We talked about how too often, students are viewed as being a “follower” or being *just* a student. But, the future opportunities are ours, and we need to encourage one another before we get cynical and caught-up in the bureaucracy. I’ll share more as things develop. We are thinking of allowing people to present their ideas and to provide ample time to discuss.

On another note, one of the co-authors and I spent the afternoon responding to editor’s comments and making final corrections to the copy-edited manuscript. Honestly, I never realized how involved the publishing process is.

Knowledge translation anyone?

I’m thinking of starting up a small knowledge translation project. Inspired by some of the work of Peter Coyte (one of my committee members), I’m thinking of creating and publishing a small newsletter that is produced four times a year. The intended audience would be senior managers and decision makers regarding ehealth. The idea is still pretty raw, but I’m thinking this may be a great opportunity to develop my knowledge translation skills and also provide a service to decision makers who may not follow the academic literature.

Humorous diversions

I stumbled onto this interesting comic strip depicting grad student life. It’s called “Piled higher and deeper”. The comic is pretty witty and reminds me of the comic-strip Dilbert. You can see the comics at www.phdcomics.com

cy. .


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One response to “Planting seeds and making connections”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    so sad u had’nt had ur discussion.

    was the “diversion” premeditted ?