Not Enough Babies?

[ultrarunner]

I'm amazed and don't even know what a Hospital Chief Engineer does.
Did you take courses similar to a civil engineer or an architectural engineer and also go to med school?

Its kind of a catch all...

For me it was 4 year Industrial Engineering.

No plans for anything in the medical field...

In 1991 a hospital near me had problems with their generator and needed someone immediately... the contracted company had no one until the following morning which meant cancelling the surgery docket.

The charge nurse said I know someone local and the CEO said at this point make the call...

Just happened to be home for lunch... I have my own property management company.

I said see you in 20 minutes... the starting battery was the problem and within an hour new battery installed, fluids and operation checked.

The CEO asked for my card and asked if I wanted a contract for weekly generator check and exercise...

I said no.

About 2 weeks later got a call asking again and was told I could do the work anytime from 5 pm Friday evening to 5 am Monday morning and I agreed because it was minutes from home and flexible...

Soon was mending broken equipment, servicing steam boilers and sterilizers, vacuum pumps, installed nurse call system, etc...

18 months after I started my weekend gig the decision was made to build a all new 32,000 square feet 6 operating room wing with MRI and CT to follow...

My little weekend side job morphed into full time owners representative for the project...

In 1995 we moved in and I thought ok... mission accomplished.

At that time I was asked to officially be salaried Director of engineering as I was part of the design and construction and knew every inch of the new build and all the players.

Through mergers and acquisitions there were lots of twists and turns leading up to joining a 65,000 employee hospital organization... Lots of Corp folks coming in with ideas that really didn't have a clue and I have outlasted all of them.

As part of the merger my salaried position was eliminated and title changed to Chief... I fought it but my Admin said give it a try... saying you can always quit later.

I make more as an hourly Chief than I did as Salaried Director because being hourly all time on the job is paid... first time ever double time, holiday pay, weekend and night differential, etc...

 

[ultrarunner]

Course work in Code Compliance, Project Management, Maintenance and Operation, Finance Management, Facilities Management all help.

Mechanical Engineers are top cadidates for this position. Need a good understanding of HVAC as it relates to patient health, ie; reasons for rooms having negative and positive pressures. Controlling humidity to keep infection risk low. Knowledge of Electrical systems, required life safety systems and on and on.
People in Hospital facilities management/maintenance require a well rounded understanding of multiple trades theory and code application.
In todays lean enviroment, understanding budgeting and finance plays heavy in there too.
Not a position for the faint at heart, this is an on the fly thinking position to address sometime critical problems without making errors.

Well said... there are plenty of opportunities to sink or swim...

Sometimes it comes down to expensive decisions or mobilizations and you own it.

Distant Corp oversight is slow at best...

When I mobilized expensive Mobil A/C last year I just did it...

When regional arrived 3 days later I said it's simple... either we are open for business or not...

After review it was decided given the circumstances the best outcome achieved as zero impact to operations.

It helps tremendously when you have the support of your admin.

TBN has been a valuable sounding board especially when it comes to the large organizational workings of the Corp world where I or my family have zero experience.

Someone told me not to get bogged down with all the new managers sent from corporate because the chances of them sticking around are slim...

TBN was right... not a single Corp person at the time of merger remained 2 years later... a lot had left and the rest were in new unrelated positions and in the large Corp scheme of things we are just a little outpost on the frontier...

 

[ultrarunner]

As to babies... at least in the medical field foreign born employees continue to increase and if not foreign born then first generation.

So many RNs have ties to the Philippines and many doctors ties to India... at least here.

In 1991 not a single nurse from the Philippines and now 60% with the number 2 and 3 top management covered.

I think a lot is cultural... to have a son or daughter RN is a job well fone for the family...

 

[drssg]

There has to be some finite number of people that our planet can support. Our global population will stabilize or decline at some point, one way or another. That has short-term economic consequences, which I think drive the panic over a declining birth rate.

In the long run, we can focus on trying to reduce pollution all we want, but the only real solution is to stop piling more and more people onto our planet.

 

[newbury]

I'm hoping my three kids have more children. They are great young adults and will do right by our grandchildren. The youngest just proposed, and recent talk was "dogs, goats, and babies" so it's sounding good!

I'd put babies first.

I still encounter grandmothers in their 30's whereas educated professional often don't become grandparents until well into their 60's

Didn't y'all see the movie about that?
Idiocracy

Maybe what they mean by "the meek shall inherit the earth".

 

[paulsharvey]

I think almost everyone misses the worst part of this population decline. It's worse than it looks. Look at China, Japan, S. Korea, Eastern Europe (to some degree excluding Poland), Italy, Puerto Rico; yes they have dropping percentage; but what's far worse is who is still alive. Your getting a situation where you have more 70 y/o than 20 y/o; more 80 y/o than 30 y/o; ect. So if you look at productive population, it's dropping way faster than the rates show. And to top it off, I sure hope the 50/60/70/80 y/o group aren't having children at those ages. So, that smaller and smaller group of 15-40 y/o are all that really count towards the potential for more kids.

I see a lot of talk about Mexicans; but this isn't good for U.S. of Mex either; they are loosing a lot of their most ambitious, 15-40 y/o group too; and if you look at the recent years; it's more and more South American/Central Americans moving up here.

 

[paulsharvey]

That population pyramid above shows the single biggest group is females, 60-64, followed by females 55-59, and females 65-69.

 

[CliffordK]

45 years ago, before China adopted their one child policy, they had an extremely young population with virtually no elderly population.

It has taken nearly a half a century for them to stabilize their population growth as their population aged.

At that time, India didn't do a one child policy, and their population has continued to grow unsustainably.

The number one goal of any government should be a country that can feed their own population, and with uncontrolled population growth that becomes increasingly more difficult.

 

[CliffordK]

There was a video clip I saw a while ago about a poor family in Northern Africa. I don't remember enough details to find it again.

However, there was a family that started with a modest food plot of say 10 or 20 acres. Enough to sustain the family, and perhaps even sell some food.

Then in each successive generation, that food plot was divided in half or thirds.

So, one goes from 20 to 10 acres to 5 acres to 2.5 acres to about 1 acre.

And suddenly a nice sustenance farm is no longer capable of supporting the family.

While it is nice to have the kids help out on the farm, it is hard for the family to see what really needs to happen to keep the food plot large enough to support themselves.

 

[ultrarunner]

Older men with younger wives starting families may be small but it seems to be no uncommon with the expat community where large age gap differences are as taboo as in the west.