WHAT AM I DOING?

I have been publishing these newsletters for a little over a year now. That’s enough time for me to be able to reflect on why I do them, what? they bring to you and what I get out of them Personally, I reap a lot of benefit from them. My hope is that they bring something positive to you as well.?

The act of writing? is therapeutic for me. Writing, in general, is therapeutic, and not just for me. How many of you have a regular writing practice? Whether you keep a journal, do morning pages, blog, write letters to friends and loved ones…it doesn’t matter what form your writing takes. The benefits of the simple act of pulling your thoughts together and putting words onto a blank space —especially if you do so longhand on physical paper—are numerous. It helps you process the world, your emotions, your points of view, and to better understand yourself.

Writing boosts creativity, helps ease stress, clear your mind, and generate ideas. It helps you structure your thoughts.?

Writing? also enables you to reflect and to share your emotions, giving them an everlasting life. The written word lives forever. Your words may be a gift you offer to your loved ones or, as a dear friend recently shared with me, they may even be an “act of resistance”.?

When I write these newsletters, I speak from my heart. They are are often deeply personal for me; in them I sometimes share with you some of the more intimate moments of my life. I share my values, my worries, my challenges, my highs, and my vulnerabilities. I see them as a means of connecting with you, and for you to get to know who I am beyond the image you may see as the CEO of Medix.

I want you to see me as the human being I am, and I want to see you as the human beings you are, not simply as patients, customers, partners, or fellow professionals.?

While there is, of course, a personal element in writing, there is a collective element as well. The written word, or image, is one of the oldest means of communication that we, as humans, have. Writing binds us together, bridging time and cultures. How many of us have read something written hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago, and seen ourselves in the characters?

Writing and reading is a way to share our humanity.?

At other times, these newsletters are less about what I am feeling and more about what I am thinking. As many of you know by now, I am constantly reading, questioning, assessing, examining, reconsidering, and challenging the status quo. Writing helps me do that. Often, I will have a nascent thought about something, or an unarticulated feeling, and the process of writing helps me solidify my ideas. The translation of the intangible into physical word demands precision and clarity. You can’t write what you don’t understand. So these newsletters become a way for me to process ideas, to think more deeply, to push concepts to their limits, and to see where that takes me. Where that may take us.

Yes, us. Because these newsletters are an interaction. They are not a one-way street.

Of fundamental importance to me is how you feel, react and respond to them. I read every one of your comments, the private messages you send, and I try to reply to all of them. The comments below the newsletters on my LinkedIn page are a conversation between me and you, my readers, and sometimes between my readers themselves. I love that. I love engaging with you. I love hearing your personal stories and the ideas you send me by private message. Please continue to reach out to me in whatever way works best for you and share what is on your mind .

Engagement with you is why we do this. We are all on this journey together. We cannot understand one another without it.?

My belief that human interaction and critical thinking are essential is so strongly and deeply held that I wanted to go even further. Deeper. I wanted to challenge myself even more in? the sharing process, so I started a podcast on Spotify, also titled “As a Matter of Fact.” I absolutely love doing it.?

We have recorded three to date and, and as with this newsletter, along with my guests, we will be sharing personal moments, professional experiences, and my passion for healthcare. As always, I endeavour to bring fact-based insights to you and the thoughts of people with distinctive points of view. Once again, it is my way of trying to make sense of the world around us, both for myself and for you. To do that I will continue to explore new stories with precision, using history, business, medicine, science, sociology, and emotion as touchstones. I will be bringing you the best minds and unexpected ideas in a way that I hope is both intimate and personal.?

One of the very first newsletters I shared with you was entitled And So We Dance On. It’s still one of my favorites. In it, I wrote about the wave of dancing mania that seized parts of Europe after the Black Plague and about our own, more modern, response to the shared stress—even trauma, for many—that the Covid pandemic wrought on all of us. I talked about the importance of mutual support and the collective acknowledgement of what we all experienced.?

I believe that as firmly today as I did last September when I penned those words. I feel it still.?

I feel compelled to continue to share and to drive awareness. Most importantly, I feel compelled to engage and to interact with you.?

I have loved engaging with you. Please continue to comment, message, share. None of us is nor should be alone in this.?

Going forward, I want us all to dance. Together. Not out of trauma but from joy.?