Author: Kathy Rowell
-
What the Hex?
I’m incredibly open to new ideas and change, but if I’m brutally honest, I must acknowledge that my inner skeptic sometimes whispers (perhaps shouts), “Change is good—you go first.” There may be something in my Myers-Briggs Type (I’m an ENFJ) that can explain this tendency, but regardless, I recognize that I often need to research,…
-
So, you’ve won the lottery, now what?
At a recent team meeting, a few of us wondered what we would do if we won the $1.25 billion (BILLION with a B) Mega-Millions jackpot. And here’s the funny thing – not even one of us could come up with anything – we couldn’t wrap our heads around the almost limitless possibilities and the…
-
Alternatives to Stacked Bars
Stacked Bar Chart or Some Other Display? As with all charts, we need to think first about the different types and characteristics of the data we are working with before deciding on the most appropriate chart type. We can ask questions such as: What do we need to tell our viewers? Do we need them…
-
A Lesson from My Dog: Correlation vs. Causation
In 2022, my husband and I said goodbye to our beloved pup, Juno, and it was HARD. She was a great companion and inspired many past newsletters. Here is a perennial favorite tale. Was My Dog Stoned? I think my dog Juno got stoned at the park — again. On at least two previous occasions and…
-
Design Thinking Required
The story of modern medicine is the story of our human struggle with complexity. Technology will, without question, continually increase our ability to make diagnoses, to peer more deeply inside the body and the brain, to offer more treatments. It will help us document it all—but not necessarily to make sense of it all. Technology…
-
Two Must-Read Health Equity Books
Historical and Structural Oppression’s Impact on Health Equity I’ve had the privilege of a world-class education focusing on our healthcare system and how to measure and evaluate healthcare quality and health outcomes, coupled with decades of work experience. However, despite my education and awareness about many inequalities that COVID-19 laid bare in recent years, I…
-
Look Here! Effective Use of Icons
Cliffs and Bears… OH MY! This past August my husband Bret and I were hiking in Cape Breton Nova Scotia when we came upon the following signs: You might think this would cause me, someone who is wildly afraid of heights and hungry bears, to consider different vacation options, but when I saw these views,…