DOI: 10.1097/CCM.0b013e31821a7bf2

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PMID: 21610571

Issn Print: 0090-3493

Publication Date: 2011/05/01


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Society of Critical Care Medicine Presidential Address-40th Annual Congress, January 2011, San Diego, CA

Pamela A. Lipsett

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Excerpt

Thank you for the honor of leading this wonderful professional society in the coming year. As your president this year, I wanted you to know me and to feel you can contact me about any issues. I would like to tell you my story and thoughts about this society. I hope you will, as I do, feel that anything is possible if you work hard enough for it and that our society has an inspiring mission and vision.
My road has been a journey. It's a long, long way from where and how I grew up. “Where” was in a public housing project just north of Boston in Salem, Massachusetts. “How” was being born with a club foot and as an infant contracting polio from the Salk vaccine (1). So I spent a lot of my youth in hospitals and around doctors, especially those charming orthopedic surgeons. As my foot was corrected and my polio controlled with braces, it was only natural to develop an interest in medicine and in surgery. I performed my first surgery at age four; I operated on my Chatty Cathy (2). It was successful. I had her apart in five minutes, and, more importantly, back together correctly in three! Today, I am the program director of the general surgery and surgical critical care programs at Johns Hopkins. At Johns Hopkins, we operate seven adult ICUs, plus pediatric and neonatal units. In addition, we've an entire floor dedicated to critical care and surgery, with a combined capacity of nearly 100 beds. It's a long way from that public housing to Johns Hopkins and now to president of our wonderful society.
What got me here is a lesson learned early in life and my message for you today. We cannot accept what it is, just because it is; we can and must go beyond. There is no doubt in my mind that in our nation's hospitals we provide the best critical care medicine in the world. But we can do better. We must set our goals and sights higher. Open our minds wider to new theories and skills.
We must move out of our comfort zone and into a learning zone. Your comfort zone is the sum of all you have learned and experienced previously. There are many positives to being in the comfort zone; it's a “home base” where you feel secure and safe. Because there is little stress, you may be willing to consider new ideas (3). It's a place to return to effortlessly so that you can rest, recover, and recuperate. The comfort zone has many potential negatives; possible stagnation, complacency, and mediocrity. You are unwilling to take a chance and afraid of failing, or standing out in a crowd. To learn, you need to expand your horizons outside of your comfort zone and into the learning zone. You must move just to the edge of your comfort zone and step one step further. This first step can be the hardest, depending on your own attitude about learning, risk, and failure. Today, step into your learning zone.
Our annual congress is a great place to start (4). Our annual congress has more than 100 sessions and 300 expert presenters. I urge you: don't go to the sessions in your comfort zone—what you already know. Go to sessions covering material you are not comfortable with. Take home from this meeting new ideas–new ways of doing things–and go home and lead your team in implementing them. Our standards for best practice today must not be the same as tomorrow.
Our society is putting that into practice right now.
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