Santhosh's ramblings

It was a regular OPD. Not too busy, but enough patients to keep all of us occupied. As we were coming to the end of the morning clinic, this man came in to check the report of his daughter. She was an epileptic and also had hypothyroidism. He had come to collect the Thyroid function tests. Not being too complex a patient, I told him everything is fine, let her continue treatment. He got up to go and then paused for second. Will she be okay, he asked? I responded in the affirmative, yes, she should be okay, but she will have to continue drugs lifelong or at least 5 years. He again paused for a second and said, her marriage is fixed. And almost within a few minutes one of the OPD helpers walked in and said, sir, this patient’s marriage is fixed! Not too common for a patient in the middle of a busy OPD to bring up such personal issues, nor an OPD helper to get these details from a relative. We asked him to sit down, or he was already sitting down by then, and I asked him a question –...

Every institution and or movements and its leaders have to ask this question – every now and then – what is our vision? What is that Big picture towards which we are steering the institution or movement towards? Unless this is consistently asked and time is set aside to pro actively reflect on this, as frequently as possible, we will lose our focus. We will lose the sense of direction and will become complacent in our daily tasks. Maintaining and running institutions and movements will become an end in itself. And this vision has to be relevant and contextual and defined and redefined based on emerging context and situations. (Clarifying vision) If the question of vision is asked and clarified, the next task is to get the staff and other stakeholders to align themselves to this greater vision. This is not an easy task. This will need a core group of leaders who understand what the vision is, and are able to articulate the same in a way every staff under him or her can understand. ...