Aging is Our Future: The White House Conference on Aging

The White House Conference on Aging will begin on Monday, July 13, 2015 at 10:00 am EDT.  You can watch live by clicking on the arrow in the picture.  The social media conversation hashtag is #WHCOA.


A new diversity is growing in America, our aging population will scale in the next generation. 
  
If this conversation is not about you it will be in the future.  It is about your family and community those around us who are aging and living longer.  A groundswell of elders across our nation means a time when wise, experiential knowledge can be shared especially in this global age of technology and innovation. Furthermore, advances in science shaping medicine and health care create new possibilities to grow, thrive and live well as we age, but we must set our efforts to make this a reality for more people. 

We need the wisdom of our elders to empower our nation for a better world. 

The fear of getting older including loneliness, frailty, loss of independence can be gripping; paired with fears of illness or navigating a chronic health conditions leaves too many in an overwhelming common place of despair.  A reality of financial instability, food and housing insecurity and mobility often moves seniors to places of unrealized potential as well as vulnerability. Yet, empowering social connection with family and community, living out purpose and dreams in your latter years can make all the difference. We are going to have use creative, novel approaches. 

Aging is our future means we should recognize people are living longer. 

The State of Aging and Health in America 2013 report indicates the growth in the number and proportion of older adults is unprecedented in the history of the United States. Two factors—longer life spans and aging baby boomers—will combine to double the population of Americans aged 65 years or older during the next 25 years to about 72 million. By 2030, older adults will account for roughly 20% of the U.S. population.

Health and well-being across lifespan are important for a robust economy and nation. 

Watch and share:

Here are some questions to consider as you connect and listen:

• In your experience, what are the most empowering parts of aging?  
• What should we be thinking about now to prepare our families, communities and country for the next decade to support older Americans and their families?
• How can the government work with the private sector to expand opportunities for older Americans and their families?
• What are the best ways for multiple generations to stay connected?
  
• What are your strategies for taking part in healthy activities?
  
• What are ways you would like to get more involved in your community?
  
• If retired, have you enjoyed new opportunities for volunteerism, business ventures or public service?
• What advice would you give to someone trying to plan for a secure retirement?
  
• How has new technology changed your aging experience?

Let's connect challenges to opportunities to realize a healthier nation for the days ahead. It's about growing older together in strength and health. Please share and leave your comments.

Reflective Practice Notes: #FSLT12 #MOOC

My first massive open online course (mooc) has started.  The 2012 First Steps into Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (#FSLT12) is a diverse group of medical educators engaged in a collaborative environment. My experience as a learner in medical education awakens my pursuit for a career in academic medical education.  My strength as innovator shapes my motivation for this platform as a beginning. The profession of medical education has formidable and complex challenges to address in healthcare, this holds around the wold.  I see my futurist position in Geoffry Moore’s Crossing the Chasm based on diffusion of innovations theory from Everett Rogers.

My academic progress has come with a considerable investment in independent self-directed learning. I have experience in the development of peer-to-peer learning modules in medical education through webinar experiences for physicians-in-training.  In these brief online settings, interactive involvement supports a short-lecture format with a move from discussion to dialogue to enhance learning and experiential connectedness. For example, a “Learning Well Webinar” planned for premedical and preclinical medical students about the strategies for learning the basic science curriculum was developed in collaboration with medical students, premedical students and a faculty member based on innovative approaches.  My efforts began with online book discussion webinars for physicians' storytelling.

Professional Standards Framework

In considering the framework of professional values this models is based on respect of peer learning adding a diverse learning community to medical education. Open registration and enrollment aims at equal opportunity for learners. The aims and objectives of the “Learning Well Webinar” offer an innovative approach to higher education learning.  The model was limited in “evidence-informed approaches and the outcomes from research, scholarship and continuing professional development” because it was new, but does fully recognise the implications for future professional practice.

I blog and write for reflective practice in medicine and life. A reflective practice on teaching and learning will be a new endeavor that’s staring in the very early stages of my professional development.  Using Brookfield’s lens of autobiography, I see my unique experience in developing peer-to-peer webinar modules as valuable, where credibility has been maintained with the support of faculty and the power of space beyond institutional walls enabling authentic encounters for learning. In Educating Physicians—A Call for Reform of Medical School and Residency Cooke, Irby and O’Brien describe four goals for medical education: standardization and individualization; integration; habits of inquiry and improvement as well as formation of professional identity.  Reflective practice provides support for evidence of personalized competency throughout the unique trajectory of training and career advancement.  


N.B. I'm also reading about mooc skepticism as Joshua Kim shares his "7 Concerns"at Inside Higher Ed.

References

• Cooke M, Irby DM, O’Brien BC. Educating Physicians—A Call for Reform of Medical School and Residency. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; 2010.
• Kies S, Martinsek, A. Improving first-year medical student performance with individualized learning strategies. Journal of International Medical Science Educators 2010 March; 20(1). 
• Moore GA. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers. rev ed. New York: Harperbusiness; 1999.

My field trip to the United Nations

Health is created and lived by people within the settings of their everyday life; where they learn, work, play, and love. —The Ottawa Charter

United Nations • New York, NY

Last month, on the final day, late in the afternoon I had a chance to take in Design with the Other 90%: CITIES an exhibit at the United Nations in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and curator Cynthia Smith. A moving installation of ideas and realities in response to the phenomena of urban growth in cities around the world. These innovative projects, creative proposals and real solutions address complex issues involving a mix of civic, public and private partnerships with urban planners, designers, entrepreneurs, public health and educators. I imagine the exhibit would make a great field trip anyone interested in shaping healthier communities in the future.

Settings for health are the places or social context in which people engage in daily activities in which environmental, organizational, and personal factors interact to affect health and well-being. —World Health Organization,1998

Health depends on livable space. Place and environment matter for healthy living.  The following caught my eye:

•    Mention of the KwaThema Project brought back memories of a healing and reconciliation initiative that I worked on within this community. KwaThema is in the East Rand province of South Africa where a community-driven pitch to build new soccer fields builds excitement among young people while also clearing the landscape for healthier  living.

•     Abalimi-Bezekhaya community gardens and microfarming feed a Cape Town community with a cost-effective model for sustainable living. Their approach is sensitive to climate change as well as self-determination, community empowerment and sustenance for healthier living. Here's a clip of their song and movement:

•     WASSUP (Water, Amenities and Sanitation Services Upgrade Project) is a large-scale project model in community development, urban design and health led by a UN Millennium Project Task Force in collaboration with Diepsloot residents, community leadership and local community developer Sticky Situations.  South Africa’s Diepsloot is a township north of Johannesburg with a diverse community including immigrants from other African nations. There is strong preference among many to remain in this setting because of the sense cultural connection and informal economic hub that nonetheless includes high rates of unemployment and substandard living conditions. WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) became a primary public health response to work for improvement of environmental conditions and health.  WASSUP applies GIS technology to locate toilets, drain pipes and sewers in need of repair and created a new rubbish-collection system. WASSUP has emerged as a business cooperative, supported with community involvement and also improving public safety.

There are over 60 installations to review, I selected these based on my experiences South Africa.  Another innovative solution Voice of Kibera applies Ushahidi tools in a global mapping project with OpenStreetMap, a GroundTruth initiative involving local youth and their communities who are taking on WASH public health strategies and safety using crowdsourcing to identify problems with water, sanitation and/or security anywhere in the community. Residents can also share posts, news, videos and SMS on the Kibera platform.

Diversity circle, holding hands for diversity and inclusion.

During my visit I was approached by a group of students from the midwest participating in a year-long bridge program. They came to New York City for a three month visit to further their experiential learning. This assignment involved creating visual symbols of diversity and inclusion while at the exhibit.  At their request, I joined hands in a semi-circle with a group of strangers to pose for a picture.

Healthier Communities By Design is a group in the Design Other 90 network offering space to further discuss health in the design in cities.

I’m now reading Dr. Richard Jackson’s new book, Designing Healthy Communities with the hope of continuing this conversation.

Our world and families in the days ahead

Today in America you have a 50% chance of living beyond 100 years. Those who are aging and living well make this mark with survival stories of resiliency by allowing the power of hopefulness to help them with setbacks in life, they overcome stress with success.  Another  key is having a network of care and love from families, friends and supportive communities. We need our families and beloved communities for long and healthy lives.

The United Nations set May 15, 2011 for the observance of the International Day of Families with a theme of "Confronting Family Poverty and Social Exclusion." It’s a call to recognize that families around the world are vulnerable especially given the persistence of violence, poverty and the uprising of natural disasters in an already unstable and unbalanced climate.  From my view convening a global or national dialogue on family requires a look beyond strategies of war, approaches to economic market stability or business as usual in search of policies and practices that mobilize resources to value, connect, unify and empower communities and families who are interconnected by blood lines across generations and living together, in close proximity through relationships and/or sharing physical location.  What’s the challenge?

“Social exclusion is often at the root of the problem. Discrimination and unequal access to social services deprive families of the opportunity to plan a better future for their children. Certain types of families are at particular risk, including large families, single-parent families, families where the main breadwinners are unemployed or suffer from illness or disability, families with members who suffer discrimination based on sexual orientation, and families living in urban slums or rural areas. Indigenous and migrant families, as well as those living through conflict or unrest, are also on the front lines of marginalization and deprivation.”  

Secretary-General's Message for 2011

The aftermath of earthquakes in Haiti and Japan show people struggling to find their children and other family members.  In Haiti the rising levels of cholera puts families and communities at risk for illness that without access to clean drinking water, nutrition and health care increases preventable deaths. In a technology meets volunteerism equals innovation, crisis mapping has helped bring response teams with resources to critical areas of the world.  A website and portal www.Ushahidi.com helps users “call for help” using mobile devices via email, sms and tweets to map locations of distress based.  Many countries like Hait don't have a 911 response system. Volunteers around the world have helped to develop the sophisticated system using Facebook, Twitter and Google maps with people on the ground to reconnect some children and families when geography seemed to be an impossible barrier. A vivid example showing the power and possibility of connection, for families around the world.

The recent devastation of tornadoes and floods in southern and mid-western parts of the United States have left many families homeless, disconnected and grieving the loss of loved ones.  Who will help them heal?  In her book, The Warmth of Other Suns” author Isabell Wilkerson tells the migration stories and now more so the return of African American families to their southern roots, which perhaps still remains tied to the search for relief from discrimination and racism. Yet, remarkable and significant progress has led to stunning diversity in America visible in neighborhoods, schools and the workplace, but also shows clear evidence of inequity at the cost of lives, comprising health and society. Here we have to continue the dialogue to realize for better outcomes for the future.

What can we do to strengthen our families?  We can take on acts of empathy, compassion and love without delay.

Creative Space: It's in Your Brain

Everyday life requires creativity
Creativity involves a mental process that allows you to generate new ideas. While we think of artists as the creative experts of our time, everyday life requires creativity. Seeing a persistent challenge with new perspective may offer a new reality takes creative effort. Your time, energy and brain can be consumed with tasks on to-do lists, everyday routines interruptions and then there are the distractions brought on by this new world of social media.


If you want your creative energy to flow you may have to give up time-consuming unproductive efforts. You'll have to make the decision to allow time in your day when you can awaken the centers of your brain. Not easy. Yet, if you pay close attention the reward of freeing your brain to be creative will yield dividends like solving problems by generating new worthwhile ideas.  You may become an asset in your workplace, family and improve your own life by using the power of creativity.

Lessons in Creative Innovation
Recently, I listened to Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and Pixar Animation discuss his creative process.  Steve learned early on the power of connecting to creativity in shaping his life.  

The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico spreading from the coasts of Louisiana and moving toward Florida will in the days ahead require creativity in the cleanup, restoration and renewal in these waters.  Furthermore, the floods of Nashville will need creative expertise from city planners to rethink infrastructure while others will work to find solutions for those who have been devasted.  In the same manner, new health care reform legislation demands that physicians think about the implementation and delivery of better medical treatment and healing using the tools of creative innovation.

Creative Innovation: A Scientific Understanding
Throughout time scientists and physicians have been innovators using their imaginations and curiosities in making new discoveries with or without laboratories. As described by Herman Helmhotz in 1826  the stages of creative innovation involve four stages: incubation, illumination, preparation and verification.   In short, you should know that your thought processes activate pathways or circuits in your brain that empower creativity whether you are a musician, writer, medical student, business executive, physicist, graphic designer or running a household. You have pathways for creativity in the core of your being.  Creativity is a life force for your well-being and health.  Creativity is meant to help you be the best person you can be and also allows you to have an impact in the world.


Here are a few of my suggestions for your creative time:

• Declutter your brain - write down your to-do list 
• Take "down time" everyday to allow for creativity - no phone calls, twitter, or social networking
• Keep a creativity journal. 
• Create different physical spaces in your office, home 
• Take a creative walk or sit by the water 
• Be persistent - push away distractions and be present in the moment.

Share your suggestions in creative innovation by leaving a comment.