Fourth Night – Service

Join your state acupuncture association.

At least once in your professional life, serve on the Board of that association, or, serve on the Board of another professional group, or serve on a committee that serves the profession, or serve in a regulatory position.

If you support other groups, like AWB, SAR, POCA, join them too. But not instead.

Join your state association even if you are thinking “but they haven’t done anything that I agree with” or “they don’t do anything at all” or “they are a bunch of a-holes who actively work against my interests” or, “I already support these other organizations that actually do the stuff I care about.”

Trust me, when I get a newsletter telling me that a top priority for my state association is continuing the fight against dry needling, I struggle to write that membership check. (Because the fight has sucked up our resources and poisoned relations with potential allies and there is no chance we’ll win.)

Why give your hard-earned and too often insufficient money to a group that you believe uses it poorly?

  1. Membership organizations are designed to represent the needs and desires of their membership. To think “I’ll join when they stop doing stupid stuff I hate” is asking them to put the preferences of non-members over members, and that’s unreasonable.
  2. Health care is regulated by the states, and the state association has some degree of power (it varies from state to state) over regulations, legislation, and appointments. It’s good to have a say in how they’ll use that power.
  3. The policies of our best hope for a productive, consensus-building, national organization meant to serve all LAcs, the ASA, are determined by a Council, the membership of which is determined by state associations.
  4. There aren’t that many of us. Even if state associations have 25% of their state’s practitioners as members (optimistic – though maybe our lower percentage is related to misperceptions in how many LAcs practice in the state) that’s still a small number. It’s hard to do much if your organization is supported by and represents fifty people.

You should serve on a Board at least once because –

  1. The experience of: working to give people what they want, balancing the demands of those who want very different things, explaining that there is no shortage of good ideas just resources, explaining (again) why the association can’t provide a health insurance plan, giving people what they’ve asked for only to find out they weren’t really going to take advantage of it (you all said you wanted inexpensive monthly CEU classes, but only two of you came) – is educational. It builds compassion and understanding for those who serve.
  2. It will teach you a lot about regulation, legislation, and how some of what people insist we could do if we just FOUGHT, is not actually doable, even when everyone involved fights their hardest.
  3. Numbers again. A fifty person organization, with a five person board, and three committees of three people means about a third of the members have to be serving at any given time.
  4. People usually become willing to make the sacrifice of serving when they get worked up about something. They feel strongly about a particular issue. It’s good to have balance so one strong leader doesn’t shut out other voices.

Now, for my friends who are serving –

  1. Thank You!
  2. Working for consensus is good. Compromise is good. Listen to the concerns of all of your colleagues and don’t automatically respond with the party line. Be thoughtful.
  3. We’d have an easier time getting people to serve if Board members didn’t end up burdened with tons of administrative work. $$ for political action is important, but let’s not neglect the benefits of $ for organizational support.
  4. Criticism is not the same as negativity. Some positions and actions are deserving of criticism. If we don’t dismiss it, we can learn.

 

And, for all of us — let’s not take our differences personally.

 

(It’s not dark yet. I made it.)

 

(Note to self, 8 posts in 8 days requires advance planning. Not a good spur of the moment project.)

 

 

Helping the Helpers in Nepal

Today I bring you a guest post from my esteemed colleague Sharon Crowell, who has previously served in Nepal with AWB.

Sharon writes —

Many of us are wondering how to best use our resources to support the victims and first responders to Nepal’s devastating earthquake.  Here is one easy thing you can do in the next ten minutes that will make a difference without costing you a dime.

The Fairfax County Search and Rescue Team was deployed to Nepal a few days ago.  The team consists  of 57 men and women along with specially trained  search and rescue dogs.  This mission is funded by the government and the people who are going are being paid their salary as fire fighters for the time that they are away.  All meals, equipment, etc. are provided.

What the team DOES need, according to my neighbor who served on the Search and Rescue Team for more than 20 years, is notes of encouragement and support.  When I asked him what we could do support those serving in Nepal, he said a simple note to the Fairfax Fire Chief would be the best thing he could think of.  These notes of thanks and appreciation are copied and sent to all of those on the S&R team.  My neighbor says that we can’t imagine how much it means to return home, exhausted and weary, and be greeted by notes of appreciation from people throughout the community.

So a short note, letting the Fire Chief know how proud you are that Fairfax County is serving Nepal in this way this way, wishing for the safe return home of those on the team, and anything personal you might want to say.

Thank you!  For those reading this who are acupuncturists, we are in the process of figuring out how we might be able to support these folks through a community-type of acupuncture clinic, weekly for 6 weeks, once they return home.  I will be working with the Fire Department on this.  Please let me know if  you have ideas regarding this or want to participate (pending details, I know.)

Richard R. Bowers, Jr.;  Fairfax County Fire and Rescue;   Department 4100;  Chain Bridge Road;  Fairfax, VA 22030;  Snail mail is best (email address is www.fairfaxcounty.gov/fr/ )  (e-mail of the Search and Rescue Team info@vatf1.org )

Sharon can be reached at 703-623-8340