Connecting The Dots of Healthcare

My brother, a public defender in Charleston, SC, sent me a clipping he saw entitled “Viking Treasure Found.” He knew it would appeal to me because I always had a second career choice as an undergraduate, (just in case I didn’t get in to medical school!), and that’s archeology. Actually, I took a course in archeology because of my fascination with “buried treasure.” My professor told me I wasn’t an archaeologist, I was merely a “pot hunter.” I think he was right and proud of it! And, fortunately, I did get into medical school.

When I was in ninth grade I bought a metal detector with my own money. Living in northern Virginia, I did find a few Civil War relics, but most of my found “treasures” were from college or med school in Duke’s East Campus or from Philadelphia’s Centennial Park, mainly coins. OK, the most “valuable” coin I ever found is probably only worth about twenty bucks, but what a thrill it is to uncover something long buried. My oldest coin dates back to 1834… a large penny. But it’s always a memorable moment when some bit of “treasure” is uncovered. On January 6, David Whelan, 60, and his 35 year old son uncovered a silver bowl filled with 600 coins and other items buried in an English field for over a thousand years. Imagine what a thrill that was!

Although I don’t get an opportunity to swing my metal detector much, (well, the last time I brought two to the beach and between my children and I, we found all of a single dime), I do find buried treasures on a regular basis. They’re usually called “ideas.”

Sometimes, when I least expect it, I’ll get an idea. The “idea detector” goes off in my brain. Now just because an “idea” occurs, it might not be a very good one. But like a good metal detector with a discriminator to judge between a rusty nail or an aluminum pop-top and a coin or a gold ring, ideas too need discrimination. Imagine the excitement of J.K. Rowling when she tumbled into the idea that would produce Harry Potter. (We did buy Deathly Hallows at Wal*Mart at midnight over the weekend and now have an ongoing race with my middle daughter to finish it first. As I’m writing… she is no doubt reading it… and will be gloating over passing my page where I left off). Imagine the idea Crick and Watson stumbled into with the double helix of DNA. Or of Gary Dahl when he became a millionaire in the seventies. (Gary Dahl created the “Pet Rock.”)

I’ve got an “idea” I’m developing right now that came out of a chance encounter with a man I met at my NSA convention two weeks ago. I’m working with some hardware and some software and I hope, within a week, you’ll be able to share this “idea” with me right here on my blog. I love new ideas and when I dig one up, clean it off and can really examine it, there’s no telling what value it may bring to me and others. Sometimes metal detecting is frustrating, just like mining a brain for ideas. But I’ve learned to realize that every-time I find metal, or an idea, it holds the possibility of real treasure if I am willing to persist and pursue.

What “ideas” do you hear? Only hearing an “idea” is like only hearing the signal from a metal detector. If you simply pass over the object, without exploration, without digging it up, it remains only a signal. Sure sometimes you’ll dig up a rusty can, but there’s always the possibility that it’s a Viking era treasure trove. You never know without pursuing the signal.

Have you ever used a metal detector? My first one had no “discrimination.” If it detected metal, it let me know. My fancy one now has a discriminator. I can tune out ferrous metals, (typically rusty junk), but sometimes you can find cool rusty stuff. And if the discriminator is set up a bit more, it will tune out ring pull tabs. But then it will also tune out gold rings! With metal detecting, a discriminator can filter information, just like you can filter ideas.

So when I use my metal detector now, I don’t discriminate initially. After I get a signal, I’ll add some discrimination, and depending on what I find by selective discrimination, I may not dig up the object. But sometimes I’ll dig up the object simply because I don’t know what it is.

Sometimes it’s good to turn down the discriminator… and just dig an object, or an idea, up because the signal is unusual. You never know what you may find. It may be a treasure trove!