Good day to you all,
I hear that I missed a really good presentation by Dave Harrington at the April meeting. A little thing called surgery kept me away temporarily. Although I could not make it, Brian tells me it was great meeting and he was very pleased with the end result. Bruce Maden and MedEquip Biomedical made this possible. Thanks Bruce for all your efforts and thank you Dave for taking the time to speak to our society.
May is the last meeting. Check the website for details and don't forget to RSVP. The following members are running for the listed office:
Dawn Toomey-Meyers
President
Brian
Zelubowski
Vice-President
John
Smith
Secretary
Richard
Constantineau
Treasurer
Rich
Richardson
Webmaster
The election will be held at the May meeting.
This will be my last meeting as BMETS president. It's time for me to step aside and get involved in other areas. I liked having the opportunity to work with Brian, Terry, Gary, and Rich. I want to thank the members that worked with the officers and the core group of members that consistently came to the meetings.
Make time for a meeting, be safe, and enjoy life. See ya.
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Like Father, Like Son...
Keeping the BMET
Profession in the Family
by Kevin Self, Associate Editor, AAMI
News
When David Michael Collings was growing up in the 1980s, he remembers
watching his father fix equipment around the house and at work. It didn't
matter what it was - a toaster, a television set, or a ventilator - his dad
could make it work.
Despite his admiration for his father's talents, he
wasn't persuaded to follow in his footsteps. "He had no interest in the field
at all," laughs his father, David W. Collings. "He didn't even like coming into
the shop."
Over time, however, his father's influence rubbed off. Today,
father David and son David - who is better known as Mike - are both certified
biomedical equipment technicians and proud of it. "My father was a huge
influence. I would not be in the field without him," says Mike.
At a time
when hospitals are struggling to attract qualified BMETs to the profession,
David and Michael Collings have come up with a simple way to get the job done:
groom BMETs in the family. David and Mike are devoted not only to the BMET
profession, but also to the U.S. military.
David, 56, is a retired Air
Force Chief Master Sergeant and currently a civilian employee working as the
chief of biomedical engineering at Wilford Hall Medical Center Lackland Air
Force Base in Texas - the Air Force's largest medical facility. He is
responsible for the maintenance of 25,000 line items and oversees 60 employees.
His son, Mike, 33, is an active duty Air Force Technical Sergeant based at
the Air Force Academy Hospital in Colorado Springs.
For David, the decision
to join the Air Force was easy. It was during the height of the Vietnam War
and, with an active draft in place, it was join or be joined. It didn't take
long for him to find his niche in the service. He became certified as a BMET in
1974, and has been devoted to the profession and military ever since.
For
Mike, the decision to join the military and become a BMET didn't come as
easily. He aspired to be a graphic artist. It took years of subtle influence by
his father to convince Mike to consider a career as a BMET. And sometimes,
dad's advice didn't seem so subtle.
For example, Mike remembers sitting
down with his father and making a list of pros and cons about joining the
service. The list, Mike laughs about now, was all pros and did not contain a
single con. "Some people wait an entire career to have the opportunity to
become a BMET," Mike recalls his father saying.
"I always told him this was
the best job in the Air Force," adds David. David's persistence paid off in
1990 when Mike enlisted in the Air Force. Following his father's advice, Mike
jumped at the first BMET opportunity that presented itself. He became certified
as a BMET in 1994, almost exactly 20 years after his father.
The parallels
between their two careers are striking. Aside from both having the same
instructor, Mike's current boss was a subordinate under his father 18 years
earlier.
"I have been plagued by people who know both of us," Mike jokes.
"It is kind of funny to hear about my father from the other side."
Mike
sees himself as a "worker bee" and his father as a manager - and a reliable
bulldog at that. "My father is the first person who people go to if they want
to get a job done," Mike says. "There is a lot of give and take with my father,
but you can always count on him. He does not back down."
Self-described as
dogmatic and authoritative, David is not surprised by the description. But he
also thinks of himself as flexible, in that he allows and expects input from
his entire team. His management style can be summarized in one word: ownership.
David believes in setting goals, delegating authority, and allowing section
leaders to take ownership of a project.
Technology and the responsibilities
of a BMET have changed considerably since David joined the service nearly 30
years ago.
"When I first came into the service, I was working with vacuum
tubes and transistors," says David. "Nowadays, everything is becoming digital.
The line between BMETs and the IT folks is becoming thinner."
Both David
and Mike agree that emerging technology is one of the biggest challenges today.
Someone entering the field needs to be competent in many computer operating
systems and interfaces. Coupled with the deployment needs of a potential war
with Iraq and continued turmoil in the Middle East, a well-trained military
force is a concern for both men.
Although David and Mike live in different
states and have different daily responsibilities, Mike says his father - the
man with 30 years of experience who started the BMET family tradition - is
always there to help.
"We try not to talk about business too much, but he
always offers advice. Even if I don't ask for it, he still gives it," Mike
jokes. "I guess that is what a father is for."
© Baltimore
Medical Engineers and Technicians Society