I remember from as early as 5 years old my appreciation for a fine ink pen and my pursuit to have as good a penmanship as my elmentary principal, Joetta Wallace. To this day, I can still here the ink sound on the paper as she wrote out my detention slip or, occassionally, the forms required to document the times she used a board across by backside to get my attention. In fact, one trip to her office was the direct result of seeing a nice ink pen on my teachers desk and thinking, "Now that's a nice pen..." and ultimately borrowing that pen only to be caught and ending up on the receiving end of Mrs. Wallace's paddle.
Writing was always an out for me. Perfect writing. Throughout school I turned in the cleanest papers in the class. There was never any smudge marks on my papers. There were never things that had been scratched out or eraser marks. Everything I turned in was prestine and through all of my school years, it was always, "Mr. Whitfield, you have beautiful penmanship."
I accidentally became the CEO at the hospital in the very early months of 2022. I have no desire to rehash history as I sincerely doubt folks have forgotten much about those days, but I arrived here at McCurtain Memorial to take over the human resource functions. In my career, managing operations for nationwide hotel brands, QSR's and even overseeing operations of hospitals, it was always about people. From the day I walked into the doors here I was writing.
Over the course of the last nearly three years Ive done a lot of writing. A lot.
In healthcare, there is a well known code that we live by: If it isn't documented, it didn't happen. In my personal life, documentation was never an affirmation that anything took place, it was always my space to be honest with myself about how certain things affected me or others.
I remember how my documentation began here at the hospital. It began with such appreciation for the fact that for the first time in many, many years, I would be a "Monday through Friday" guy who would be able to clock in and out and leave work behind. I was so naive about what was coming in the next seven days and how that my whole world and that of the hospital, along with 250 employees, would be turned upside down when it became public that the former CEO and the Chief Nursing Officer, who had been hiding an affair for a long while, were seen by several hospital employees and an outside company we contract with, making out in the CEO's office while his zoom camera was still running. That was certainly "documented," in a 17 minute long video recording that passed through the hospital and town like a winning lotto ticket.
From that day forward, I have found myself shopping for better and better ink pens on Amazon. And, in fact, nicer journals to write my notes and thoughts in. My wife has actually asked me when she sees the UPS driver leave a small, roughly 8.5"X11" box on the porch, "More journals?"
Yep.
These days I find myself seeing such vile, untrue, accusatory and flat-out ignorant comments on social media about me and the hospital and my go-to has been those journals. Within those pages I have expressed anger, hurt, frustration, sadness, exhaustion and so many other emotions. Writing within those pages how mad it makes me to read such untrue statements in social media that serve no purpose but to divide the community and occasionally writing myself a note that says, "Brian, quit reading the gardbage."
It amazes me how that the small number of negative comments or accusations can divert so much of my attention or focus from the massive number of positive responses and commitments of support and when I go back through my writings over the last several years, how much the pages within them are filled with notes about the profound impact the negative has had.
I could not purchase enough journals in a lifetime to fully document all of the amazing people I have met here at this hospital, or the incredible stories where lives were saved or improvied. I could not buy enough ink pens (or borrown enough :-)) to document the positive ways that this experience has impacted me. Yet, here we are.
Today, I realized on my way back to the hospital to work on a Saturday (negative mindset at first thought) that I am the author of my story. I have a choice to let the story be guided by ridicule, accusations, hate, and malice by only a few people who, by all accounts are not bad people. Their just ill-informed. While I miss the days when that spewing was limited by 140 characters (you young folks will never get that) and hate that meanness can spread now with unlimited characters and travel faster than the speed of light, we all still control our story.
There is a true story about the hospital, the people running it, the financial hardships, the past, and so much more that is incredible. Yes, there is some not-so-good, not-so-proud moments in our history's - but there's a beautiful silver lining even in those that tell an amazing story of overcoming the odds. A story that, over the next few months, piece-by-piece, I want to write.
Can I borrow a pen?
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