before i get sidetracked one more time, here's my reaction to your journal notes: "responsibility in an adversarial environment." you were right on target when you wrote that "one way to kill a revolutionary is to weaken him/her by refusing to grant ascribed status." is it no wonder we don't have the time or energy to write grants to get the resources we really need? is it a coincidence that we don't publish in all the traditional journals? is it a coincidence that we're tired and exhausted all of the time? [i know this has turned out to be a publication!]

at any rate, your experience reminded me of a recent one. not in an academic setting, but medical.

the story:

i'm always researching the latest on diabetes. found out that in europe a new insulin was being used, but not here. it was supposed to come out at the end of 2000. i told our diabetes educator about it. she hadn't heard.

several months go by.

in june, during our kid's checkup, the doctor tells us about the "latest, greatest" insulin (glargine, or known as lantus, also). turned out to be the same thing i had researched six months ago. he wants our kid on this new insulin right away.

the problem:

the diabetes educator is conducting once a month workshops for families making the changeover. (that's called institutional efficiency; killing several birds with one stone). these workshops are scheduled on a saturday from 9 til noon. if you don't attend the workshop, you can't change over to glargine. (now, that's called structural violence.) what is convenient for the institution is not convenient to the patients and their families).

at first, richard thought there was no other option, (what the institution would like you to think, right?) our kid has soccer practice on saturday mornings and she's starting with a new team so missing practice is not a good idea.

for insurance purposes, the patient must be at the workshop, so the parents can't go for them. (you see, they bill the medical insurance people. how convenient to spend three hours one saturday and billing each family's medical coverage separately, huh?)

i told richard to tell the diabetes educator to change the date/time, but he said she'd have to check with her supervisor (another strategy, huh? this one is called defer to higher AUTHORITY?) stall till "they" forget what they had asked for. or maybe they'll get tired of asking and quit.

it was like pulling teeth to get the diabetes management center folks to figure out that it was "structurally violent" to assume that all families can attend one of the saturday morning workshops scheduled during june, july and august. (we missed the june workshop. wasn't informed til after her doctor's appointment. we missed july because of soccer practice. we'll miss august because we'll be out of town for a conference!). well, they finally "gave in" after a lot of pushing on our part, to schedule our own workshop with the diabetes educator and doctor (of course, she's on vacation for the next two weeks. the week after that our kid is in camp. and who knows what the doctor's schedule is like?)

The Lament

now, why does something so simple take so much of our energy? so little energy that we have because we're busy "fighting" other battles in other arenas.

it just zaps so much energy and time to be on top of these things. what is frustrating is that more than six months ago, we were telling the diabetes management center about this new insulin which they hadn't heard of.

i'm sure others have similar "horror stories" of structural violence. susan

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