Michael Reddy, DMD, DMScIt has been a busy time. With being on the go seven days a week, autumn has snuck up on me. As I conquered a mountain of laundry last weekend, I was reminded of long-ago days when I would spend all summer in a pair of shorts and boat shoes with little need for much else.
I was probably over-romanticizing the image, but it conjured up memories of more carefree times. It was a great way to keep my mind off the task at hand …
I am not the most skilled, or experienced, laundryman so my mind tends to wander as I work. As I pulled each piece of clothing from the dryer and folded away, my mind drifted away to the mystery of the missing laundry. In our house, favorite T-shirts seem all too often to go on extended vacations. What’s more, the poor ill-fated socks routinely lose their partners. How does that happen?
If your attire is shorts and boat shoes alone, you might not care about the missing socks. Otherwise, you’ll probably find it interesting that Samsung commissioned a study to unravel the missing in action footwear problem. It’s remarkable how we can solve almost any problem if we just look at it from a different perspective and with a bigger set of data.
The company teamed up with a psychologist and a statistician to poll 2,000 people to look at washing habits and determine the risk of losing socks. As a result, they developed a relative-risk sock loss index that is explained by the following formula:
Sock loss = (L + C) – (P x A)
In other words, the size of the laundry load, plus the washing complexity (sorting colors and all that), minus the positivity toward doing laundry, multiplied by degree of attention, predicts the number of socks you will lose. The higher the figure, the higher the likelihood of losing socks. There you have it.
So, what could a sock loss formula have to do with higher education and health care? As many of you know, I am a big fan of experiential learning and I believe that having depth and breadth of clinical experiences make one you a better practitioner.
However, seeing a broad range of patients and being exposed to complex situations is not enough. If you approach your work with a negative attitude and lack of precision and detail, then patients, learners, colleagues and our community will suffer the consequences. Rather, it’s important to take on every clinical experience (or whatever you do in life) with the right attitude, attention and effort.
Attitude is the first thing people notice when they meet someone new. It’s important to start a relationship with a patient, a colleague – or anyone for that matter – on the right foot. A positive attitude manifests itself in constructive and creative thinking, makes you feel inspired, and gives you the motivation and energy to function and accomplish goals. Simply put, the power of a positive attitude is a major determinant of success.
Yet, attitude alone is not enough. By nature, humans lack patience. We’re always looking to answer a problem as quickly and easily as possible. The rewards of accomplishment, though, often come down to the kind of focus and concentration we give – and that takes effort. Winston Churchill put it best when he said, “Continuous effort, not strength or intelligence, is the key to unlocking our potential.”
We can actually learn a lot from Samsung’s solution to the lost laundry dilemma. After all, the right attitude, consistent effort, and attention to detail go a long way in work and in life. They may even keep people from noticing you’re wearing mismatched socks.
Until next time,
Mike
Michael S. Reddy, DMD, DMSc
Dean, UCSF School of Dentistry
Associate Vice Chancellor, Oral Health Affairs
