Archive for the ‘Children’ category

What a weekend

May 13th, 2018
Nina had her piano lesson from the church music director, and when he walked into the room, three-year-old Pete yelled out, “I know him. He’s the guy who played the music when the Lord came out of his cave.”  (Pete and Joe were both at Easter mass.)

On Thursday evening we all went to the elementary band and choral concert at my grandkids’ school.  We were five minutes late and ended up parking illegally on the grass.  When we got inside the auditorium, the real fun began. Trying to keep Pete under control for 90 minutes of really good elementary music is, to quote Jerry Seinfeld, “Like putting a baby goat in a pillow case and hoping it behaves.” His mother ended up taking him into the hallway for at least twenty minutes, and as my long departed father-in-law would say, “ She took him out there to “blow the stink off.”  That kid  ran up and down the hall at Road Runner speeds until her head was spinning.

Friday evening was birthday party number three for the third grader in Pittsburgh. I’m not sure why, but kids seems to have a minimum of three birthday parties now: close family, full family, and family and friends. Of course there are always presents involved. There was also more cake, and, believe it or not, more Barbie Dolls. I’m happy to report that the dolls have evolved and are now representative of all shapes, colors, and forms.  Let your imagination run wild because there’s no limit to the ethnicities of these dolls. It may not be long before there’s a border wall built around the Mattel corporation to limit access to the United States.

On Saturday, Nina competed in the State gymnastics tournament and placed second in her age group for the whole State. Five hours to see five minutes!  Then the two Pittsburgh girls had their musical, a program they’ve been working on since last fall. This event involved feeding and then transporting every available family member to the show.  (Everyone, that is, except Pete.) We recruited our best relocated Johnstown to Pittsburgh friends for extra beds, food, and toys to hold this grand gathering together. The show was great, and, because she was going to miss her acting friends who were moving into seventh grade, Zoey cried for hours after the last curtain call. She had the staring roll as the leading lamb with one line, “Baaaaaaa,” and she managed to steal the show. And Lucy, well, Lucy’s always great.

Sunday morning was the Pittsburgh Marathon, and let’s just say that trying to get around in the City on marathon day is like trying to get out of East Berlin in the early ‘80’s.  You could drive in circles, but couldn’t get anywhere. We finally gave up and walked everywhere with a “hangry” little guy who didn’t care about the 40,000 plus runners, the clanging cowbells, or the people around him. He just wanted his mom, and the rest of us were clearly speed bumps in his way.The extenuating circumstance was his mom, big brother, and dad were all in the race and not near him.  It was our job to find them, cheer them on, and finally to reunite with them and get them back to the condo for showers.   They all did great, but I can only describe this experience as Arrrgh.

After the Johnstown kids were gone, we met the Pittsburgh kids for dinner at a restaurant where the wait would have been three days or longer. So, we headed off to another place, slammed down a salad and went to see our friend’s son, Matt, in “Hamlet.”  Truthfully, it brought back lots of memories of advanced high school English.  He was amazing.  I couldn’t help but think if they had only had psychotropic drugs, no one would have died.

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Posted in Boomers, Children, Family, Sports

Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Op-Ed

December 11th, 2017

Nick Jacobs, among his other affiliations, is an officer of the Integrative Health Policy Consortium, which represents more than 600,000 IHM practitioners; president of the Clinical and Translational Genome Research Institute, which he founded; and a consultant to the Department of Defense in breast cancer research.

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Pennsylvanians received good news recently when the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council reported that hospital readmissions and mortality rates continue falling locally and statewide.

The report shows these rates declining for a number of common types of treatments. It gives much of the credit to a “commitment of PA hospitals to provide quality care” and to the Affordable Care Act, which ties reimbursements to that quality care. This, in turn, encourages health care facilities to strive for improved mortality rates because doing so helps keep government funds flowing through their doors.

Regardless of the motivation, this is good news. But it’s not good enough.The mortality rate could be improved even more dramatically if more healthcare administrators and physicians would introduce integrative health and medicine practices into their services.

Integrative health and medicine (IHM), as defined by the American Board of Integrative Medicine and the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine & Health, recognizes the importance of the relationship between practitioner and patient. IHM focuses on the whole person, is evidenced-based and employs a wide range of appropriate therapies, healthcare professionals and disciplines to achieve optimal health and healing.

Integrative health practice includes treatments and therapies such as acupuncture; natural products; deep breathing; Tai chi and Qi Gong; meditation; massage; special anti-inflammatory diets; progressive relaxation; journaling; biofeedback; pet, music and dance therapies; hypnosis and guided imagery. When provided by a licensed or certified health care professional, IHM provides numerous benefits. It can decrease chronic pain, post-operative pain and the need for medications. It can improve patient satisfaction and shorten hospital stays. It can lower mortality rates. IHM methods also are relatively inexpensive.

Many places, including the Cleveland Clinic, have reported cost savings per patient, while also seeing reductions in patient anxiety, pain, and medications. During my tenure as CEO at Windber (Pa.) Medical Center, I worked with physicians, staff, and volunteers to create a healing environment by embracing all methods and therapies used in integrative medicine and combining them with the ambiance of a fine hotel and the amenities of a health spa. We carefully scrutinized and credentialed practitioners specializing in services such as aroma and massage therapy, integrative nutritional counseling, acupuncture, chiropractic manipulation, pet and music therapy, reiki and spirituality, to name a few.

In short, a healing environment permeated our facility.

Yes, we had our share of naysayers and opposition among physicians, allied health care professionals and others, but over time our infection rate dropped below 1 percent and stayed there for a decade. (The national average is 9 percent.) Of our peer hospitals, we had the lowest readmission rates, restraint rates and lengths of stay. Even with a palliative care unit to care for dying patients and their families, we had the lowest death rate among our peer hospitals.

For those who would say it was all coincidence because Windber is a small hospital, I would direct them to the 19,000 papers written supporting the efficacy of acupuncture alone, and then to the thousands of papers written about the healing power of music, massage and so many other treatments dismissed all too readily by traditional practitioners.

IHM practices are not at odds with traditional medical practices; rather, they enhance them. Yet in many hospitals and physicians’ offices, they are ignored, discouraged, even ridiculed. Such negative reactions result from ignorance, misinformation, prejudice and even greed — pharmaceutical companies, for instance, see no profit in promoting most IHM treatments, and some medical practices might earn less if, instead of scheduling patients for costly treatments or surgeries, they instead treated patients with acupuncture, spinal manipulation, massage therapy or even mindfulness.

Resistance to IHM is breaking down, but this shift in attitude needs to be accelerated. If you travel to Europe or Asia, you will see integrative medicine practices thriving because their value is acknowledged and embraced. In America, IHM beachheads are being established in health care systems and universities, thanks to such groups as the Family Medicine Education Consortium, Integrative Health Policy Consortium and the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine, of which I am a co-founder. The academy includes among its member’s hundreds of licensed physicians who have successfully merged IHM with traditional medical practices.

Much remains to be done to more broadly spread the healing benefits of IHM, which will happen only when more patients take more responsibility for their health and demand IHM treatments, more physicians research and adopt them, and more insurance companies pay for them. When that day comes, there will be a lot more good news about mortality rates and other measures of medical care for Pennsylvanians and people all over the country to celebrate.

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Posted in Boomers, Children, Current Affairs, Diet, Family, Future, Healthcare, Hospital, Hospital Administration, Hospitals, Integrative Health, Leadership, Medicare, Military Medicine, Nutrition, Public Health

Random Thoughts About Things That Confuse ME

October 12th, 2015
 People have often asked me, “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?” In fact, I was in gym class. Six years after that, on April 4, 1968, I was in Pittsburgh when Martin Luther King was shot. I was back again in Pittsburgh on June 5, 1968 when Bobby Kennedy was killed. Finally, as a young teacher in Johnstown, on May 4, 1970, four students were killed and nine more were wounded by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University. Between the riots and civil unrest that followed these events, I was pretty sure that our world was spinning out of control, and I had just graduated from college.

It was during that time of the Vietnam War, the escalation of the Cold War, the race riots and political rallies, that a chasm began to appear between those men who still had crew cuts and white socks, and conservative hippie kids like me with my wire-frame glasses, sideburns, and mustache.

In fact, at my very first job interview, the department head, a man who was still firmly planted in the 50’s, asked me if because I was my college class president, I’d ever been involved in a campus riot. Meanwhile, there had only ever been one small demonstration at my university, and I wasn’t even on campus when it happened. But his question offended me so much that I replied, “Only the one.” Needless to say that job went to someone with a crew cut and white socks.

Throughout my life I held profound optimism that because we were a country that embraced education, espoused Judeo-Christian love, and incorporated tolerance and diversity in our stated beliefs, our philosophies would prevail and the world would become a better place. Wrong.

Because I spend much of my time on the road, Facebook is often the way I keep in touch with my virtual and real families. It keeps me apprised of changes, challenges, and the daily activities of those I both care about and want to be connected to through this last quarter of my life.

Of course, Facebook is filled with puppies, kittens, babies, and opinions, and many of those opinions remind me of the Archie Bunker character who so famously dominated the airwaves in the All in the Family sitcom of the 1970’s. That series, along with MASH and The Jefferson’s attempted to challenge the way Americans dealt with race, war, and general closed-minded prejudices.

It makes me sad when my friends, people that I love and most often respect, write posts that are passionately in support of social beliefs that embrace continued gun violence, racial prejudice, twisted religious beliefs, intolerance, greed and hatred. It would be easy to unfriend them, to write them off, and forget about them, but the teacher in me wants to try to educate them and to help them find their way. That never works because most of them are Archie Bunker’s age and older. All I’m asking is for tolerance, the embracing of diversity, and a non-violent philosophy of loving others. It’s the Golden Rule. Unfortunately, it’s often the Rule of Gold that seems to prevail.

I can tell you where I was on April 20, 1999, April 6, 2007, December 14, 2012: Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandyhook. Unfortunately, I can’t even tell you the name of the school or how many kids were killed on January 4, September 14, September 30 of this year. October 1, 2015, however, became more tangible because the hospital that cared for the wounded in Oregon is run by a friend, and Troy Polamalu’s cousin Brandon, a teacher at Umpqua Community College, was on campus at the time of the shooting.

Minimally, as a country, can’t we invest in behavioral health initiatives and enforce background checks.

Meathead really was the voice of reason on so many levels

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Posted in Boomers, Children, Healthcare, inspiration, Leadership, Public Health, Public Policy, Uncategorized

I Remember Stephen

June 2nd, 2010

In the 1970’s, my career was wrapped completely around teaching, not just teaching, but teaching and playing music.  It was during that decade that my trumpet playing reached its peak, and between the numerous big bands in the area, I could play at least two weekend and one weekday nights every week.  The music was good, the musicians were friends, and the audiences were appreciative.

Johnstown Pennsylvania - A History - Part 2 - Randy WhittleThe Lemon Drop, Casa Romani, Mynderbinders, Bimbo’s, the Holiday Inn, the Ramada Inn, and a dozen other clubs with mostly ethnic or fraternal names were the sites of many a part-time playing job.  Be it the Johnstown Jazz Workshop, the Barnum and Bailey Circus, the Ice Capades, or Disney on Ice, my playing salary for the year often rivaled my teaching salary; neither of which came to more than $500 a month.

Along with those playing “gigs” there was one other primary, part -time employment opportunity and that was teaching private trumpet lessons.  It was my choice to teach at the Johnstown College of Music which was owned by Peg and Bob Hornick.  My schedule there was always packed full from 5:30 PM until 9:00 PM Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday mornings.  There were kids of all ages from all school districts, and in the 1970’s those kids helped me pay the mortgage.  Even though I was usually pretty tired by 9:00 PM and often dreamed of learning to sleep with my eyes open, I never did.

One of my smallest students was Steve.  He was a little toe-headed, 7th grader from Forest Hills when he came to me, and he loved music.  He loved the fact that he was learning to play the trumpet from a professional and each week he got a little better.  Steve understood what it meant to work for something that he loved, and he didn’t mind getting an occasional tongue lashing if he hadn’t focused enough on his practicing that week.

Well, one night in 1976, I rushed through dinner, grabbed my jacket, and started for the door when my son, then three years old, stopped me and said, “Daddy, where are you going?”  I explained that I had to go to work.  He very slowly replied, “Daddy, you just came home from work.”  I signed and said, “I know, buddy, but I have to make some extra money.”  He looked at me quizzically and said, “What for, Daddy?”   To which I countered, “To buy you shoes.”  At that point he looked up at me and said in a very stern voice, “Daddy, I have shoes; please don’t leave me.”

It broke my heart to leave that night, but I did because I knew that I had an obligation, and when my first student walked in the door, I took a deep breath and thought to myself, “Steve, I’m here for you tonight, “ but those words were never spoken.
Ironically, there was an obituary in the newspaper last week, and it was an obituary for a 47 year old man who also left behind a son.  The age and the picture drew me further into the printed word where I read a name that seemed strangely familiar to me, Stephen Yanzetich.  It was Steve, my Steve, little 7th grade, toe-headed Steve who shared me that night.

Unbelievably, after 34 or so years, in his parting recognition, the author acknowledged that I had taught Steve trumpet, and as I sat back and read my own name in that obituary, I realized, once again, that it had been worth it, that 34 years later my time with Steve had been important to both of us.  That simple acknowledgement said to me, “Thank you, Mr. Jacobs, for caring enough about me to teach me all of those nights.”  To which I can candidly reply,”Thank you, Steve, for being such a good kid, and may God bless you.”

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Posted in Children, inspiration, Music Education

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There are (at Least) Ten Reindeer

December 13th, 2009

{Taking a business blogging break this week for a little holiday fun.}

This holiday thing is intense. I was reading the other day that people started really getting into celebrating Christmas around 354 A.D. So, we made it from 354 until about 1954 before things really became so commercial. It took 1600 years for capitalism to take hold, but when it did, WOW! I’m not exactly sure what a Christmas recession looks like in other countries, but in the United States, we seem to still buy everything; we just try to get it on sale.

So, in the spirit of holiday capitalism, I went to the mall today with three of the little kids; the six, four, and almost two year old.  We went there to see Santa Claus, or, as their mom called him, “The Big Cheese.” When she called Santa that, there was a three kid pause, and finally, the four year old said, “Cheese?” Who is the “Big Cheese?” “Santa,” her mom said, “Santa Claus is the Big Cheese.” Nina said, “Why is he cheese? I thought he was Santa.” By then mom realized that it was not good to confuse little kids about elves, magical people, and such because it was already confusing enough.

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The day’s plan was simple: get their picture taken with Santa. We needed Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller’s teacher to pull off that miracle. The oldest one with two missing front teeth, played with everything in the garage before agreeing to be strapped into his seat, and the baby somehow flipped the lining of her seat and buried the belt latches. Only the four year old, who was wearing her Christmas dress, sliver dancing shoes, and holiday hair ribbon climbed into her seat and said, “Let’s go see Santa.” Not unlike her three year old cousin, Lucy, who spent hours under the Christmas tree staring mesmerized up into the lights and decorations, Nina was completely into it all.

When we arrived at Santa’s workshop, we watched a string of tiny kids panicking on the ole boy’s lap. The two year old was no different. Nothing helped. Squeaking reindeer toys, binkies and funny faces, were all in vain as she screamed in the arms of this strange, red suited man. After the trauma, we bought their Christmas picture. It had one terrified baby and two older kids looking off into space as if a hypnotic alien was on top of the camera. It could have been a scene from “Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.”

During lunch we discovered that Santa had known exactly what the middle child wanted for Christmas, and that he had even discussed the particulars with her in detail.  The magic continued. It was also during this meal that  we had a very serious reindeer discussion. The boy’s mother looked at me and said, “Ask your grandson to name the reindeer that pull Santa’s sleigh.” So, I did just that. To which he replied, “Well, Poppa, you see, there’s Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen plus Rudolph and Olive.” “Olive?,” I said out loud. “Yes,” he replied strongly, “Olive the other reindeer …used to laugh and call him names.” The absolute truth about the reindeer is that Dunder and Blixem, Dutch words for Thunder and Lightning, had their names changed to Donner and Blitzen several years ago for better song rhyming. (Another list of reindeer names that I saw included: Fireboy, Leroy, Pablo and Clarice, so Olive worked for me.)

In fact, this week I got another E-mail describing a third grader who was reading a story in class when he yelled out, “Mr. Markle, what’s a frickin’ elephant?” The teacher walked quickly over to the student’s desk to assure him that he was incorrect when he saw that the boy was reading a story about an “A-frican elephant.”? He was obviously Hooked on Phonics. So, “Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.”

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Posted in Children, inspiration

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Random Thoughts. . . Learn From Your Mistakes

March 21st, 2008

Make sure you know the question before you give the answer.

My kids taught me a lot about this job. At age seven, my son said, "Dad, where did I come from?" I knew that question was coming, but I had not expected it that soon. "Son," I said, "Let me explain about life" As I began my meticulously rehearsed tale of the birds and the bees, I slowly explained the nuances of life, love and more bees.

I was perspiring profusely as I stumbled over these sensitive descriptions. After about ten minutes of squirming, stuttering and stammering I said, "Do you understand, son?" To which he turned to me and said, "Heck, Dad, I knew all that stuff. I just wanted to know what hospital I came from, Mercy or Windber?"

Learn to share.

Hospitals deal every day in life and death issues. They are extremely complex and multifarious places. Emotions can run very high as well as we deal with the challenges and mysteries of life. Helping people to share has been a very large part of my life. Helping them to share resources, time, space and all aspects of life is a very important contributor to our success as both care givers and human beings. When I was eight, my Aunt Mildred gave me three pieces of bubble gum. As I was walking home with all three pieces stuffed into my jaw, a group of kids jumped me, pinned me down, took my gum right out of my mouth and divided it up between them. It would have been a lot easier on me if I had just kept a few pieces out to share.

Finally, don’t repeat it if you don’t understand it.

In any organization there always seems to be someone who takes great pleasure in telling the story when they aren't really sure of its meaning. After standing near Jack, a 15 year old sixth grader at school one day, my vocabulary expanded exponentially. He talked about mysterious things that made no sense to me, but he was big and I was small. In my world, that meant that Jack knew all. That night when my mom told me, the little third grader, to get ready for bed, I looked up at her standing beside my grandmother, aunt and dad and said, "I don’t have to go to bed, you @$#%&*$@!"

My limp cleared up right before I had to walk across the stage to pick up my college diploma thirteen years later.

Learn from your mistakes.

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Posted in Children, Healthcare, Hospital, Hospital Administration, Hospital Blog, Leadership, Motivation, Weblogs

Horses and Health

March 13th, 2008

Due to my personal fund raising commitments this year, the staff here at my organization probably feels like hiding under their desks when they see me coming. You see, this is the year that we did a feasibility study to decide if we will have enough community support to raise needed funds to construct expanded emergency and obstetrics facilities and to provide WMC with a reserve for the future. That effort will be made public in a very few weeks.

The reason for their angst, has been that, for whatever reason, this is the year that their boss, me, has been solicited to solicit contributions for numerous other organizations in the area. As a board member for the Keystone Chapter of the American Red Cross, we worked with a tremendous group of local leaders, including our Congressman Jack Murtha, who helped us conduct a successful $300+K campaign that literally gave that organization new life.

Then we were approached by the Boy Scouts of America for their annual dinner to help generate enough cash to support their efforts as well. Over $110,000 was raised for that effort, the results of which will ensure the continued growth of the Penns Woods Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Next, came the Girl Scouts of Talus Rock; that project is currently underway and hopefully, will produce the needed funds for expansion and growth. Oh, yeah, and the Winter Jazz Concert is coming up, too. Finally, this is the tenth anniversary of the Arcadia Performing Arts Theater, and that place surely needs to be endowed with a reserve fund that will ensure its continued success.

Several years ago one of our employees explained philanthropy to me in this way. Each one of us have several pockets, and each pocket can represent our varied fund raising interests. In the spirit of giving, it is clear to us that, if you like the organization, believe in the mission or, for whatever reason, care about the vision provided by the board or the leadership involved, you make your decision to give or not to give.

When my own mother passed away, we discovered that, although her pensions amounted to less than half of the average salary in our area —which is about $10,000 less than the average U.S. salary, she was donating at least 50% of that money to organizations in which she believed. So, here’s one more worthy cause.

A few years ago, a wonderful, caring, local physician approached us regarding children at risk. During the numerous meetings that we held, we discovered the incredible healing qualities that equestrian therapies can provide. Yesterday, this topic was reintroduced by a dedicated, committed physician, Dr. Deb Baceski. She met with me to discuss the Somerset Therapeutic Association for Riders, S.T.A.R. located on the web at STA4R.org. According to their website, “Established in 1995, STAR has been providing safe, closely supervised riding lessons to physically and/or mentally challenged children.” It goes on to explain that; “In a typical training session, a handicapped child is helped to mount a carefully trained horse, and is then escorted on a ride for twenty minutes by three volunteers . . . ”

Star4org_1_3

One of the challenges that STAR is facing right now is that of the sometimes brutal winter weather that residents of this area have grown to know and “?” love. Dr. Baceski approached us for assistance in a program that she calls, The HORSE POWER Project. This project involves constructing an indoor riding arena so that the free therapy provided through this program is not interrupted by frost bite.

Although my organization is also quietly involved in soliciting assistance in our own expansion needs, this horse power project is not financially overpowering. The volunteer Physical Therapists, Physician Assistants, Teachers and Physicians who enable this empowering, socializing, learning program to go on for those individuals isolated by their disabilities, can’t do it alone.

So, take a look at sta4r.org, and, if you personally believe in this volunteer effort, or if you know of someone who could help them network their way to an enclosed arena, we invite you to show your support. Their address is 305 Highpoint Drive Somerset, PA 814-445-4909. Give if you want, but at least talk to someone who might.

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.”
—Helen Keller

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Posted in Children, Development, Disability, Healthcare, Recreational Therapy, Sports