Diversity....

My favorite quote of the day today was totally taken out of context, but its always better this way.

“I come from the mental health field…I like to hug people with my thoughts”


I have spent the last two days at orientation for my new job at the Hospital. We have had a wide range of topics to talk about. It honestly has been a boring couple of days but I know there are always matters of business that need to be taken care of and today we had a couple good conversations. Today we talked about diversity and patient satisfaction. Makes sense really. My favorite thing that we learned about was the platinum rule. I guess I’m always used to hearing about the Golden rule, but this one struck me as interesting today. It fits in with a phrase I always use anyway. The platinum rule is “Treat others as they want to be treated”. In a patient context it always makes sense. You want to give the best service…yadda yadda. But I thought this was funny because I have said many many times to myself and a few times out loud to other people. Sharing is not always caring. It’s my belief that just because you are ready to share something doesn’t mean that someone else is ready to hear it. So the good ol’ Golden rule of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” doesn’t really always hold up if you are trying to please people just because of difference of beliefs or paradigms. In healthcare you can’t go by the same slogans that are used in fast food like “the customer is always right”. Not so true, but it is okay to let them be treated the way they want to be treated. This is why we ended up talking about touching. Some people feel it is okay to put a hand on someone just being caring or friendly but it really is a line that some don’t like to have crossed. So you need to ask. It’s just a matter of good communication. You are always safer finding out how a person feels by asking rather than by acting then asking. For some reason I found this an interesting thought to think on again today.