ASSININE MEETINGS, POOR PLANNING & EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
Friday, at about 12:55 PM, an "emergency," "mandatory" meeting was called by my boss. The thing about meetings where I work is that they are always "mandatory," almost always have some "emergency" attached to them, and are almost always called at the last minute. Adding insult to injury, there is always a promise that the meeting will only last "five minutes" or "just a few miniutes" and these promises are always broken. Friday's "five-minute meeting" lasted 40 minutes.
Anyway, Friday's meeting was called to announce to the Allied Health faculty that starting NEXT module there would no longer be any live injections of any kind in our Pharmacy course for the Medical Assisting curriculum, nor in our Pharmacy Tech curriculum. The rationale was merely that an incident had occurred at one of our campuses in New Jersey, and although there was not an associated law suit, "corporate" has decided that all such injections will be discontinued. We will still teach injections, only it will be taught using oranges and tomatoes, which is how we actually start out the teaching of real injections.
There are several issues here. Let us start with the meeting. If the discontinuation of the injections is going to start NEXT module, which is about 20 days away, why was this meeting an emergency? Why have a meeting at all? Wouldn't a memo have sufficed? If, as is the case, this change of policy only affects one course, and if that course is usually taught by about 4 of our faculty, would it not have been more effective to have those people attend a brief meeting in the director's office and a memo to the rest of us?
Then there is the issue of making ALL meetings mandatory. I contend that if a meeting is mandatory, then there ought to be some mandatory importance to the meeting. Merely having a meeting shouldn't mandate attendance. There ought to be a purpose that mandates the attention of all of the faculty. As it was, the mandate on Friday forced several faculty members who DO NOT teach clinical courses to remain 40 minutes over on a Friday afternoon... and it just happened to be the day that we administered our mid-term exams. So, there we were with a load of research papers to read and grade, a ton of mid-term exams to grade, and having worked our tails off for the entire week. BAM! A mandatory meeting with the usual bovine excrement content.
So, now we attend the meeting, we receive the word on the policy change, we all acknowledge that it is an erroneous, knee-jerk reactionary policy made by folks that have no knowledge of good education or effective curriculum design for Medical Assisting. Then we are ALL asked to spin this to the students--all of whom were told at the time of enrollment that this was a value-added aspect of our curriculum. As we comment on the prima facia evidence that someone in corporate is without an iota of common sense in these matters, we are told that "We all make a choice to work here. If we don't like it we know where the door is."
Correct me if I seem to have taken this the wrong way, but it seems to me that this "see the door and use it" comment smacks of a complete disregard for the value that the faculty brings to the curriculum, the campus and the corporation in general. Our corporate bosses are sprucing up the corporate bottom line in order to go public. It would seem to me that keeping quality faculty members onboard would be to their advantage. It would seem to me that faculty input on policy matters should be sought before the corporate bosses allow the lawyers and VPs to institute a run and CYA policy that undermines the value of our curriculum... AND opens the door for review by the DOE, ACICS and federal court cases on fraudulent enrollment. After all, our corporation lives and breathes by federal financial aid. We advertised to those students already enrolled that we had this specific training. I am not a lawyer, but I know fraudulent sales practices when I see them. Can anyone say, "Bait and Switch"? Since there over 120 students in our Medical Assisting curriculum at any given time, can anyone say, "Class Action Suit"?
Now I am currently teaching two courses on a repetitive basis: Legal Aspects of Medical Assisting and Interpersonal Relations. In these courses I make the case that there is an inextricable need for effective communications to avoid the legal issues that might arise in the workplace, in medical care, and in life as a general rule. The courses cover topics that include working as a team, planning meetings, understanding legal issues and processes, torts (including fraud), advertising, workplace laws, privacy, confidentiality, conflict in the workplace, basic communications, family dynamics and more.
One would think that my bosses would carefully consider the consequences of their actions based on the fact that WE are teaching our students to consider the legal and communication issues. One would think that if we expect professionalism and effective communication from our students, then we should be practicing it amongst ourselves. If we demand time management from our students, should we demand it from our bosses? If we contend that there are ways to avoid stress and burnout--such as Proper Prior Planning Preventing Poor Performance (6-P Principle)--should we not expect our bosses to employ and model these behaviors?
Why is it that the quality of the product, service and education are at the bottom of the list for our bosses? As a quality-oriented instructor, this perception makes me feel like I, too, am at the bottom of the list for my bosses.
Jim
Anyway, Friday's meeting was called to announce to the Allied Health faculty that starting NEXT module there would no longer be any live injections of any kind in our Pharmacy course for the Medical Assisting curriculum, nor in our Pharmacy Tech curriculum. The rationale was merely that an incident had occurred at one of our campuses in New Jersey, and although there was not an associated law suit, "corporate" has decided that all such injections will be discontinued. We will still teach injections, only it will be taught using oranges and tomatoes, which is how we actually start out the teaching of real injections.
There are several issues here. Let us start with the meeting. If the discontinuation of the injections is going to start NEXT module, which is about 20 days away, why was this meeting an emergency? Why have a meeting at all? Wouldn't a memo have sufficed? If, as is the case, this change of policy only affects one course, and if that course is usually taught by about 4 of our faculty, would it not have been more effective to have those people attend a brief meeting in the director's office and a memo to the rest of us?
Then there is the issue of making ALL meetings mandatory. I contend that if a meeting is mandatory, then there ought to be some mandatory importance to the meeting. Merely having a meeting shouldn't mandate attendance. There ought to be a purpose that mandates the attention of all of the faculty. As it was, the mandate on Friday forced several faculty members who DO NOT teach clinical courses to remain 40 minutes over on a Friday afternoon... and it just happened to be the day that we administered our mid-term exams. So, there we were with a load of research papers to read and grade, a ton of mid-term exams to grade, and having worked our tails off for the entire week. BAM! A mandatory meeting with the usual bovine excrement content.
So, now we attend the meeting, we receive the word on the policy change, we all acknowledge that it is an erroneous, knee-jerk reactionary policy made by folks that have no knowledge of good education or effective curriculum design for Medical Assisting. Then we are ALL asked to spin this to the students--all of whom were told at the time of enrollment that this was a value-added aspect of our curriculum. As we comment on the prima facia evidence that someone in corporate is without an iota of common sense in these matters, we are told that "We all make a choice to work here. If we don't like it we know where the door is."
Correct me if I seem to have taken this the wrong way, but it seems to me that this "see the door and use it" comment smacks of a complete disregard for the value that the faculty brings to the curriculum, the campus and the corporation in general. Our corporate bosses are sprucing up the corporate bottom line in order to go public. It would seem to me that keeping quality faculty members onboard would be to their advantage. It would seem to me that faculty input on policy matters should be sought before the corporate bosses allow the lawyers and VPs to institute a run and CYA policy that undermines the value of our curriculum... AND opens the door for review by the DOE, ACICS and federal court cases on fraudulent enrollment. After all, our corporation lives and breathes by federal financial aid. We advertised to those students already enrolled that we had this specific training. I am not a lawyer, but I know fraudulent sales practices when I see them. Can anyone say, "Bait and Switch"? Since there over 120 students in our Medical Assisting curriculum at any given time, can anyone say, "Class Action Suit"?
Now I am currently teaching two courses on a repetitive basis: Legal Aspects of Medical Assisting and Interpersonal Relations. In these courses I make the case that there is an inextricable need for effective communications to avoid the legal issues that might arise in the workplace, in medical care, and in life as a general rule. The courses cover topics that include working as a team, planning meetings, understanding legal issues and processes, torts (including fraud), advertising, workplace laws, privacy, confidentiality, conflict in the workplace, basic communications, family dynamics and more.
One would think that my bosses would carefully consider the consequences of their actions based on the fact that WE are teaching our students to consider the legal and communication issues. One would think that if we expect professionalism and effective communication from our students, then we should be practicing it amongst ourselves. If we demand time management from our students, should we demand it from our bosses? If we contend that there are ways to avoid stress and burnout--such as Proper Prior Planning Preventing Poor Performance (6-P Principle)--should we not expect our bosses to employ and model these behaviors?
Why is it that the quality of the product, service and education are at the bottom of the list for our bosses? As a quality-oriented instructor, this perception makes me feel like I, too, am at the bottom of the list for my bosses.
Jim
posted by Jim Downey at 7:34 PM
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