Help us go out of business Part I

Most businesses have a goal to maximize their market share, to maximize the need and desire for their products and/or services. The maximizing of profits as well as long term organizational and individual employee security depend implicitly on the business attaining this goal. Survival of the organization and the security of its employees are the basic premise of the businesses' profit-making goals.

In contrast, philanthropic and non-profit organizations often have mission statements that place prime priority on the provision of services and/or products that improve the quality of life, the effectiveness and efficiency of the its 'customers' - without mention of profit or market share. Many market driven businesses dabble in 'social responsibility' endeavors in parallel to their profit making in order to improve their image as a beneficial entity within the society. It is not only the tax exemption incentives that motivate organizations and individual people to provide not-profit services. Humanism is alive and well. But is it doing well enough? Philanthropic and non-profit organizations and their employees have a common implicit goal with profit driven businesses - that is the suvival of the organization and the security of it's employees. What if philanthropic and non-profit organizations had the same killer instinct as for-profit businesses i.e. to maximize market share?

The non-profit would then have as its mission to put itself and its employees out of business.

Limp

I don't remember his name. My was telling me that she had seem him in the clinic and that she had brought him with her to the hospital. He was waiting at radiology with another smaller child who had a high fever, cough and was breathing fast - concerning for a pneumonia. My planned to x-ray both kids, the smaller child to look for a pneumonia, and the other little guy because he wasn't moving his left arm. My ran the story by me, and something didn't sound right. There was no pain or sign of a broken bone that could damage a nerve causing the symptoms. He wasn't moving the arm at all she said, it just hung limp by his side. I wanted to exam him myself after hearing the story.

He was there sitting next to an adult who held a child with an IV - the child waiting for the chest x-ray. No parent of his own was around, I remember thinking that the six or seven year-old wasn't shy in the least as I walked right up to him. My told me his entire immediate family except his mother were killed in the quake. I started manipulating his arm and spine feeling for anything abnormal as he fidgeted uncomplaining. After a few minutes, I decided he wasn't faking it. I wasn't going to be able to convince him to move his left arm a budge, even with My translating commands for me or by pinching him on his arm. My said that he had been like this ever since the earthquake. In an attempt to determine the mechanism of the injury as a true sleuthing doctor, I asked him what exactly fell on him before he stopped moving his arm. Maybe the mechanism might help in coming to a diagnosis. My translated for me. I understand almost no Creole. I had studied a little bit with My for a few weeks before our trip. Yet, I understood the prompt and matter of fact one-word response he gave as his eyes wandered the radiology waiting room. I laughed out loud, because I didn't know what else to do. Why would I ask such a ridiculous question. I am still moved deeply by the humility and reality of his response.

'Kai' means house.