Johns Hopkins - Don't forget the S

Johns Hopkins was an amazing, inspirational, and visionary man. I am embarrassed that did not know more about this man before coming to Baltimore. This man wasn't even a physician (nor did he have much formal education at all) but saw the need of the people in his city and wanted to create something better. He wanted the world's best medical school and hospital along with the stipulation that all people that enter through the hospital doors were treated with the best health care no matter their race or ability to pay. That may still seem like a novel idea today, but imagine what that would have been like in the days when slavery was still an accepted practice. It is an amazing legacy in the advancements of health care and it's all due to this one man. I included a short bio about him that I retrieved from the JHH website.

 

Johns Hopkins

His great-grandmother was Margaret Johns, the daughter of Richard johns, owner of a 4,000-acre estate in Calvert County, Maryland. Margaret Johns married Gerard Hopkins in 1700; one of their children was named Johns Hopkins. the second Johns Hopkins, grandson of the first, was born in 1795 on his family's tobacco plantation in southern Maryland. His formal education ended in 1807, when his parents, devout Quakers, decided on the basis of religious conviction to free their saves and put Johns and his brother to work in the fields. Johns left home at 17 for Baltimore and a job in business with an uncle, then established his own mercantile house at the age of 24. He was an important investor in the nation's first major railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, and became a director in 1847 and chairman of its finance committee in 1855. Hopkins never married.

He may have been influenced in planning for his estate by a friend, philanthropist George Peabody, who had founded the Peabody Institute in Baltimore in 1857. In 1867, Hopkins arranged for the incorporation of The Johns Hopkins University and The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and for the appointment of a 12-member board of trustees for each. He died on Christmas Eve 1873, leaving $7 million to be divided equally between the two institutions. It was, at the time, the largest philanthropic bequest in U.S. history. (http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org)

 



Orientation to JHH - Week 1

I have officially made it through my first week at Johns Hopkins. Most of what I have been doing is orientation stuff and getting acquainted with all the HR and HIPPA policies and all that good stuff. We have also had lectures and homework assignments to help familiarize us with common mistakes that occur on our services and how to avoid them. Then Friday was testing day. I have never felt so stupid in my entire life as I did on Friday. My in-patient and trauma management skills are definitely lacking in just about every aspect. Luckily the testing day ended with suturing skills which is something that I at least have some confidence in. It is also very intimidating to know that the surgeons and doctors that I will be working along side with are the best in the world and people from all over the world come to this hospital to have their procedures done. My main preceptor physician Dr. Chi is an amazing trauma surgeon who is building robotic arms that are controlled by the patient's own brain and nerve conductions. It's just one incredible thing after another at this hospital.

"A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for"

I was told that today, this the twenty-first of October two-thousand thirteen, marks my Johns Hopkins Birthday as I am now an official employee of this historic and ground breaking institution. I will discuss later and expound on the legacy of Johns Hopkins as I continue to learn more about why it has been declared the best hospital in America (U.S. News & World Report); but first a little about me.

First I must say that the quote entitling this post is a perfectly fitting analogy for my life at this point and it is courtesy of William Shedd; a theological philosopher of the late 1800's.

I was born and raised in Orem, UT and my parents named me Mary Deane Dyer for both my Grandmothers, Mrs. Gwendolyn Mary Franck and Mrs. Bonnie Deane Dyer. I am the middle child of a family of 7 children (one boy and 6 girls) and as such I believe I learned to be a sort of peace maker between the siblings, although others may have a different opinion.  My parents raised us all in the traditions of the LDS faith with strong emphasis in self-discipline with high expectations in our educational and vocational endeavors. As my father is a business professor at Brigham Young University I could not miss the opportunity of receiving a great education for an excellent price. After graduating BYU in 2010 I defected to the rivalry school, The University of Utah for my Masters of Physician Assistant studies, for which my father relented his distain only to the portion of the Medical School for which their MPAS program is ranked second in the nation. I received excellent training during my 27 month program and graduated early August of this year. Through this time of my didactic and clinical training I had many of my own personal challenges (including a divorce from a man I had been with for 8 years of my young life) but still I have always lived in Utah County with lots of family and friends around me for support through it all. So why then, after working so hard to get through school and finally achieving a comfortable state of being, did I feel the need to pick up all my things, leave the only home I've ever known and move to Downtown Baltimore to take a large pay cut with double the work load to spend a year as Surgical Resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital? The answer as to why I have ventured on this adventure is because I really do believe in these words by William Shedd.

This quote is also significant to me in that I have moved to an area of Downtown Baltimore called Inner Harbor. This is a beautiful area of the city and if you ever have a reason to visit Baltimore you must walk the paths around the harbor area. Each day as a resident I will be arising before the sun and leave the beauty of the Inner Harbor area and make my way through some of the more ghetto areas of the city to get to the Hospital (which I learned today, there was a shooting incident inside the Hopkins hospital in 2010 where one doctor was shot, a patient was murdered, and the shooter committed suicide). Each and everyday of my residency I will think of these words as I leave the comfort of my home on the harbor and go the intimidating sea of knowledge that awaits me at Johns Hopkins Hospital. I do know that this is the absolute best place for me to learn how to better serve and care for the patients and their families that come to me looking for help. And when days get tough, the hours get long, and the work never stops: I will remember - "A ship in harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for."

Inner Harbor, Baltimore taken 10/21/13