The Monday Morning Quote #637

“Political promises are like biscuits, once they are broken, they can’t be repaired.”

Roy Lilley

 

Safety of lateral flow tests questioned.

From British Medical Journal

The lateral flow devices used in the community testing pilot in Liverpool only picked up half the covid-19 cases detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and missed three out of 10 cases with higher viral loads, according to the government’s own policy paper.1

Jon Deeks, professor of biostatistics at the University of Birmingham and leader of the Cochrane Collaboration’s covid-19 test evaluation activities, told The BMJ, “The results are hidden as a single sentence in the annex of a document. This is not the way important scientific findings should be made public, particularly when the test is going to be used off label with hundreds of thousands of people.”……..“These results are devastating—they are missing a third of those with high viral loads. How can these tests be used for safe entry into care homes, for healthcare workers to safely return to work, or for the safe return of students? They are not fit for purpose.”

Allyson Pollock, director of the Newcastle University Centre for Excellence in Regulatory Science and a member of Independent SAGE, said, “This is scandalous. Where are the data underpinning the statement in the document? Mass testing should be paused until we see the evidence and Liverpool evaluation.”…“The Liverpool public who went for testing seem to have been grossly deceived and misinformed about the usefulness of the test and purpose of testing. They were not told that one of the purposes was research on the lateral flow test in healthy people.”

So I was curious…..

Where and what did the new Cabinet study?

The subject mix is firmly in favour of the humanities (57%) and social sciences (30%), with seemingly only one minister having studied a STEM subject, Alok Sharma, International Development Secretary, who studied Applied Physics.

Source HEPI (July 2019)

All italics and emphases are mine.

In Praise of Simplicity

“As you continue your craft, simplicity reveals itself in most cases. The younger you are the more you think the most baroque solution is the good one, and sometimes it is, but you learn to identify simplicity.” Guillermo Del Toro.

Guillermo del Toro’s belief in the power of simplicity drives him to do what many of us would find unnerving. Link

“Everything should be made as simple as possible but not more simple.” Einstein

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” William Morris

“In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

Objective Decisions and the Devil’s Advocate

Prospective clients ask me how I work, what I do and so on. Sometimes I sum it up by saying that I hold a mirror to their practice and working lives in order to help them see things more clearly, other times I’ll say that I walk beside them as their guide and cheerleader along the road to success, often I act as a Devil’s Advocate.

Entrepreneurs are especially prone to the risk of emotion-driven judgment because they fall in love with their ideas, which are like their children. They become emotionally attached to them, although they often don’t recognize that’s what is happening. Here are four ways you can help yourself remain detached so you can make more objective decisions:

  • Ask two primary questions: “What’s the worst that can happen?” and “Can you live with that outcome?” When answered immediately, freely, and with no strings attached, the answers often are a game changer.
  • Separate the person from the behavior. Put yourself in the role of a stranger or expert to view the idea you face more objectively.
  • Establish clear, measurable criteria for the range within which your idea or business must perform to be considered viable. Identify in advance what the boundaries are by defining criteria or minimum and maximum outcomes. If your results are not within those boundaries, chances are your idea or business isn’t going to work.
  • Choose a devil’s advocate. Turn your idea over to a trusted colleague or expert chosen for his/her objectivity. Ask this individual to search for weaknesses or issues that need to be addressed.

Like many over the past months I have been going through my notebooks, stored websites and referenced articles. I always try to acknowledge my sources when I quote anything however I found this as a note, cut and pasted from an article and I can’t recall from where it was sourced. That doesn’t reduce the power of the advice. If you recognise it please let me know. For some reason I think it may have come via Alan Weiss, if so I tip my hat to him. alun.

Mid-Week Dental Medley #2

Notable Quotable, “I rang up Guy’s hospital… and I said ‘what’s this thing you’re doing, the vaccination?’… They duly put me on the list, I went off and had rather a nasty lunch, and then came back and they were ready for me.” the interviewee reminded me of the Bonzos. Here he is in all his glory, don’t miss the man taking his door for a walk.

IDS postponed until September, you’ll have to wait, I have always promised myself I would head to Koln for one of these. Next year I hope. Here’s the full story.

Top 10 Technology Products from 2020 a download courtesy of DPR

For the dentist who has everything, something to hide their smug smile.

The Solution to Depression is Action

“Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard set the standard for how a business can mitigate the ravages of capitalism on earth’s environment. At 81 years old, he’s just getting started.”

I thank my friend Richard Hellen for introducing me to, founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, and encouraging me to read the autobiography, Let my people go surfing.

An. article in Fast Company (from October 2019) is worth reading to understand Chouinard’s philosophy, it includes the line, “The solution to depression is action” which refers to the state of the damage due to climate change and whether it is worthwhile doing anything. He says, “What’s the alternative, just sitting on my ass?”.

Far too many of us (me included though I hope not all the time) are watchers in many circumstances, and too many are wonderers. Jim Lovell once said, “There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened. To be successful, you need to be a person who makes things happen.”  Jim Lovell? Apollo 13!

Two men, both past 80, one over 90 whose words and deeds can inspire us in our everyday actions in attempting to do what’s right not just for today but for future generations.

Thanks to MBS for the YC quote. and starting me on this piece.

 

 

 

 

We need to stay aware of the Instant Gratification Monkey.

I believe that most of my clients think they have a problem with procrastination, those who don’t, think they take decisions (the wrong decisions) too quickly and in order to repent and avoid the same mistakes again develop a procrastination habit….

This TED talk by Tim Urban takes a humorous but serious look at procrastination. Worth a look – especially if you should be doing something else.

The Monday Morning Quote #636

“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” 

Pema Chódrón

Swimsuit anyone?

I sell swimsuits.

Like you, I have spent the months of the lockdown contemplating lessons from the past and considering the future. One of the biggest questions we can ask ourselves is “what do I do and why do I do it?”. The “what”, I can sum up as, “I give swimming lessons and also sell swimsuits”. 

Everything comes and goes in cycles.  Jacket, trouser and hem lengths, lapel widths, hair styles and jewellery, all evolve. Even in dentistry, treatment fashions can change. Variations of dogma in periodontology, restorative and orthodontics mean that treatment modalities fluctuate.

Business has trends. Time was, every business guru had the mantra, “Diversification is the name of the game”. A short time later, after an unforeseen and sudden shock, they rebranded themselves as thought leaders and led the chanting, “Concentrate on your core business”.

For fifteen years, NHS practices have been seen as a good investment with fixed contracts producing a guaranteed gross income. Scarcity of contracts plus the value of the NHS brand means that practice prices have increased significantly. Of course, the amount of money the purchaser has to borrow has risen as well. Private practices have followed the trend at a distance. 

For a while all has gone swimmingly. Now there has been another profound shock, but shocks are part of the cycles of business life. 

Warren Buffet, the 89 year old head of Berkshire Hathaway is known as a cautious investor, where possible he takes a long view of everything. As one of the wealthiest men on the planet he has earned respect. My favourite of his sayings is, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who has been swimming naked”. 

There are far too many dentists skinny dipping in their business life.

You now understand my “what”. I hope my why is obvious.

 

Thinking point.

I can identify with this very much. The introduction from Michael Palin’s Diary “Travelling to Work”

“This is the rough and ready on the spot account of a fundamentally wary and conservative soul drawn to risk like a moth to a flame. Someone who is convinced that his gut instinct is more important than all the advice in the world.

Someone grounded, safe and who can be tempted to almost anything. I don’t like to be confined to the road ahead, that I’m drawn to the back street and side alleys, to the quirky ordinaries of everyday life, to the unexpected, to the unexplored. When I’m not travelling I experience something very similar as soon as something looks predictable or secure or straightforward I hop off to one side lured by whatever it is I have never done before.