Perhaps you've been there before.  You're a department manager in a large academic center in a metropolitan area.  You have vacancy rates in excess of 10 percent, and your hospital just added a new 100-bed critical care tower that will require an additional 12 therapists.  Competing with at least a dozen other hospitals in your ...

A common issue, especially in a small work environment is the question of how to separate personal life and business life?  How do we stay connected to employees, but maintain a professional relationship as well?Over my years as the manager of a small, and then as a larger department, I developed lifelong friendships with some of my ...

President John F. Kennedy's statement ''Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country'' still resonates today.  It asked US citizens to look outside of themselves to fulfill your needs and help others.  There's something to that when it comes to hunting down a raise. Raise ...

Becoming the therapist I want to be often seems like a long impossible road. So I try not to focus on the road or the finish per se; I focus on the small baby steps that are taken that are so important in making me more independent and separating me from that ''new grad student'' mentality. Baby steps, like the first successful unsupervised blood ...

''Clean shirt, new shoes,   and I don't know where I'm goin' to.  Silk suit, Black tie.  I don't need a reason why...''-ZZ Top Does it really matter what we look like when we provide care to our patients as therapist?  I imagine it does not affect the level of care we provide to our patients...or does it?  Over the ...

While it's true the path from college to career-oriented employment is paved with undesirable hours, minimum scaled salaries and longer loan repayment periods, there may actually be an advantage or two available for the laboratory science professional. With the currently projected shortage of clinical laboratory personnel, those individuals just ...

One of the most valuable gifts we can give ourselves and each other is the gift of knowledge.  I love to teach and I love to learn.  Unfortunately, sometimes learning about one's faults is not a lesson easy to swallow.  Allow me to elaborate on my most recent slice of humble pie.My husband and I are in relatively the same business ...

Today I read an article from The San Francisco Chronicle on researchers' attempt to create an online library of human genetics on Wikipedia. There have already been 7,500 Wikipedia entries on different genes. The researchers are hoping the popular online encyclopedia will help form a collaboration among scientists. When I read this, I had a ...

As I walked to my car one afternoon after work, another manager at the hospital appeared beside me, interrupting my thoughts. ''Do you ever close your office door?'' he asked. ''What, after I leave for the day?'' ''No,'' he said seriously. ''While you're working.'' Distractions are a given--confusing, exciting or frustrating. This is ...

When I started my first lab, it was a 2 bed operation.  My first hire was my dear friend with whom I had trained, Robbie Williams, RRT, RPSGT.  She and I trained back when the earth was still cooling and with machines which produced paper tracings.  My department worked under the direction of Pulmonary Services.The second person I ...