In Act III of Thornton Wilder's, "Our Town," Emily, deceased during childbirth, speaks to her fellow spirits, begs to return to one day in her life & is warned against it.
"But it's a thing I must know for myself. I'll choose a happy day, anyway." Her wish is granted.
You & I share Emily's hope in other ways. We seek return to best days & know we cannot. We can do something impossible before: enjoy both today and those days through reflection & reunions (e.g., RMH Facebook Page.)
I do that often.
June 30, 1983. I parked on a hill & stared down at the campus I would lead in 12 hours. Riverside Methodist was the largest hospital in Ohio. 8000 caregivers, including 1500 doctors, attended to thousands.
Thirty-nine, I was humbled & thrilled. If I took care of the people who took care of people those caregivers would have better lives.
June 30, 1995. Exactly 12 years later, I walked out the door for the last time as CEO of RMH & OhioHealth, thrilled by huge changes & heartbroken it was over. Other fine opportunities awaited but RMH was the longest & best.
To which of my 4,380 days at RMH would I return? Most, but not all.
Jovial Tom Van Papingham from maintenance wore OSU suspenders every day. I took him to a game. Arriving just before kickoff there was Tom wearing a giant smile & those OSU suspenders.
"Any trouble parking?" I asked.
"Nope. Got here two hours ago," he chuckled.
"Wow. How many games have you attended?"
"This is my first! Isn't it great?" he said.
OSU lost that day but Tom won. He may not have been a nurse, doctor or therapist but Tom helped our leaders understand that everyone was a caregiver. No maintenance, no hospital.
A million moments prove that "small" times anchor reveries. Amazingly, staff still thank me for showing up: to congratulate them on a new baby, thank them for their hard work, work a half-shift beside them in uniform in every area from laundry to nursing, thank (the late) Marcy Alton for world class employee recognition events.
Our leadership team enabled home runs like Hospice at Riverside (Tracy Wimberly), McConnell Heart (Jeff Kaplan), Elizabeth Blackwell Women's center (Tracy), new day care center & (in photo) on-campus grocery store (Mark Evans & Carole Stanley), & much more.
Metrics endorsed our culture as patient/employee satisfaction soared above the 90th percentile for ten straight years with parallel results in quality & finance. Our strength gave me the base to found OhioHealth.
On national television n 1994 ABC News' Forest Sawyer declared we had lifted Riverside to "One of the top 10 hospitals in America."
David Whyte teaches us Emily's trick: "Memory is not just a then, recalled in a now, the past is never just the past...memory is...a then continually becoming other thens...creating a continual but almost untouchable now."
Yes. We can go home again.
-Erie Chapman
Photo posted on Facebook by Colleen Timko
P.S. I Googled Tom and could not find him.
