Title: Provoking Thought: Satisfaction NOT Guaranteed
Author:
Section/SPIG: Health Administration
Issue Date:
Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim, MD, MPH, PhD is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has over 25 years of work experience in public health and cares deeply about population health. You can reach him via e-mail at <iai@usm.edu>.
The following are thoughts that crossed my mind and I am sure crossed the mind of many others. How often do we think of something that we don’t share with others for whatever reason? In order to share such thoughts and maybe encourage others with better thoughts, I thought of sharing these thoughts with the provocative title above. They are intended to be thought-provoking, and any other side effect is not intended, so use carefully.
- In conferences, receptions are typically known to be networking occasions. That’s what everyone says. However, we see them as an occasion for a lot of fake smiles, poor food that no one dares to criticize, talk that makes little if any sense, and business cards that we know where they usually end up! Why do we keep doing them this way? Can we do them any better?
- In almost all the APHA Annual Meetings I attended over the last 20 some years, regardless of the theme of the meeting, one always finds the same old stuff that marginally relates to the theme. No one wants to say this publicly, but I feel it needs to be said and vented if things can get better. Maybe there is someone listening out there like program planners!
- In a session on public health and the media, panelists from the media basically said something like, “we want to teach you how to talk to us, media people.” I immediately thought, “Why don’t they learn how to read and listen to public health people instead?” Better still if both of us sit down and learn how to talk and listen to each other for the public good. Could we live to see this day?
- During the session on the uninsured in America, the coordinator proudly said that APHA has been drawing attention to this problem in the nation for the last 100 years. I could not believe it! One hundred years and we are still going and going and going like the Energizer bunny and the problem is actually worsening! Doesn’t this tell us that whatever we are doing is not working and we need to change?
Editor's note: If you have thoughts or opinions or a response to these statements, please address them to the editor: Laura Larsson <larsson@u.washington.edu>.