Friday, September 28, 2007

October baseball

Back in March -- wanting to give my loyal blog readers ample opportunity to criticize or praise my managerial judgment -- I discussed our decision to be Official Hospital of the Boston Red Sox. The jury of my peers was split on that issue, but I want you to know that it is an intensely popular thing among our employees and physicians. Notwithstanding the (ahem!) high regard with which I am held by the staff, if I were to end this sponsorship arrangement, I would be dead meat. So I am happy to report that we were pleased to reach an agreement with the Red Sox to extend it for a second five-year term.

Here is a typical email from a staff member on the subject, when it looked like the team was imploding a couple of weeks ago, while our football franchise was doing really well:

Thank GOD! We have the Patriots to lessen the pain.
They won't break your heart like the SOX do 85 out 86 years!
Sincerely,
A lifelong disgruntled SOX fan!

PS. By the way, do you have any SOX tickets
?

As you can imagine, when the playoffs arrive, there is a lot of interest in the allocation of our company seats at Fenway Park. We want to be really, really fair about this, while also using the opportunity to support a worthy cause. Here's how we solve the problem each year, as detailed in an excerpt from my email to the BIDMC community:

Dear BIDMC,

Now that a playoff berth for the Red Sox is assured, we can offer the long-awaited BIDMC Playoff Series Raffle. All are welcome to participate. As in the past, raffle tickets will be $5 each. You can buy as many as you like. As in the past, too, the proceeds of the raffle will be in recognition of a special group of people.

Who Benefits?
For the Divisional championship series, the proceeds will go to support the professional advancement programs of our Medical Technologists and other staff in the Pathology Department. These folks are among the unsung heroes of our hospital, performing millions of blood and tissue tests every year, running our blood bank, and carrying out other critically important tasks. Without them, the work of the hospital would grind to a halt. The proceeds of the raffle will give them scholarships to attend professional seminars. So, even if you don't win a game ticket, you can rest assured that your purchase will go to a worthy cause.

Which Tickets are These?
These are the two BIDMC corporate seats in Row 2 behind home plate. This is a view of the game that few get to experience, and here's your chance! We will pick three winners, one pair of tickets for each of the three potential home games. (Sorry, if you win the later game’s seats and there are fewer than three games, you will still get the tickets, but you will only get to use them by hanging them as decoration on your wall!)

We will do a separate raffle for the next playoff series, the ALCS, and the one after that, the World Series, if and when the Sox make it that far.


How Much, When and Where?
Raffle tickets cost $5 each. They will be on sale:

Friday, Sept. 28, and Monday, Oct. 1
11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
East campus Ullian dining area and west campus cafeteria

At off-site locations, the following staff members have graciously agreed to sell raffle tickets. Please be considerate and e-mail or call ahead before you visit:

** – Bowdoin St.
** – Lexington
** – Needham
** – 109 Brookline
** – Chelsea
** – Renaissance Center 5

The Rules
The raffle is for BIDMC, BID-Needham, BIDMC off-site, APG and CareGroup Corporate staff members and volunteers. You MUST HAVE A PHOTO ID FROM ONE OF THESE ORGANIZATIONS to purchase raffle tickets. There is no limit to the number of raffle tickets you may purchase.

If you work evenings or weekends, or cannot make the dates above, you can make a photocopy of your ID and ask a colleague to purchase raffle tickets for you, or you may contact Volunteer Services.


The winning raffle ticket will be drawn on Tuesday, Oct. 2, at 3:45 p.m. in my office. The winner will be informed via phone and e-mail, and the information will be posted on the BIDMC portal by 4 p.m.


Good luck!!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a pathologist, kudos to you for helping out the lab staff! All your comments about them are dead right; thanks for the rarely received recognition for them.

Anonymous said...

Ahem.

Now that your glorious staff has managed my SURVIVAL from that nasty cancer, I think it's a tremendous error that you overlooked the opportunity to include one more constituency in the raffles:

Patients.

Signed,
Patient Dave (with a large grin)

Anonymous said...

Nice try. Of course, I could be a front and buy some tickets in your name. No one will ever know. Please remit . . .

Anonymous said...

In terms of sponsoring the Red Sox, I have a much bigger concern with the new Mass Health Connector advertising on Red Sox games. Seriously, anyone that can afford the high cost of Cable TV and NESN should NOT have taxpayer subsidized health insurance. I have always wondered how many people without health insurance manage to find the money for cable TV, NESN, cell phones and other items of far less importance. I wonder who is using the Health Connector's playoff ticket seats that the Mass taxpayers purchased?

Anonymous said...

Patient Dave;

I enjoy your comments and obvious enjoyment of life. I bet your docs feel good too. Best of luck to you and keep it up; you make us all smile!

ps It's unfair you guys in Boston have BOTH the Patriots and Red Sox. I am stuck with Redskins and Nationals. (but just wait, on the Nationals that is. The Redskins are permanently doomed by their owner.)

Anonymous said...

A note from patient Dave's journal:

I forgot to mention a truly dreadful thing that happened to me while I was being examined at the hospital a week ago.

There I was, totally vulnerable. The nurse practitioner who'd been such a bright spirit and good help throughout my treatment was checking things and had her hands on my throat ... we had just discussed that the Yankees had beaten the Red Sox on a grand slam .... and then she tells me SHE'S A YANKEES FAN!

Dave:

We will hire ANYONE who meets our standards of patient care . . .

Anonymous said...

Paul---would you please officially ban the wearing of Yankees scrub hats in all the ORs? (There are a few.) They are unacceptably increasing our patients' risk of post-op nausea. . .

Mark Graban said...

Go Red Sox (as a former Boston resident).

That's great that you are supporting Medical Technologists, who are often unsung and forgotten about in the basements of many many hospitals. They're among the people who nurses and physicians only talk to in the course of complaining about something...