Chapter 15: A Role as “Toxin Handler”

Chapter 15: A Role as “Toxin Handler”

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Description

In this chapter, Dr. Holleman reflects on the role he has served vis a vis the faculty during the last five and a half years. He notes that his job has been to listen to the faculty and reflect back what they are saying. He also tells an anecdote about learning the phrase, “toxin handler” to describe what his real job is. He defines this role more fully.

Identifier

HollemanWL_02_20170420_C15

Publication Date

4-20-2017

City

Houston, Texas

Topics Covered

The Interview Subject's Story - Overview; Overview; The Clinician; Definitions, Explanations, Translations; MD Anderson Culture; Working Environment; Ethics; Professional Values, Ethics, Purpose

Transcript

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Could I say one more word while it's on my mind?

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

As you've been asking me these questions, I've been—I want to make it clear that I don't have any formal—that my main job or contribution in all of this has just been as a listener, and maybe trying to reflect back what I'm hearing. And I was talking with someone named Kevin Grigsby, he's a director of leadership at the AAMC. I was asking him, is that my job? You know, I was trying to get some insight as to what I was doing. And he said, "You're the Toxin Handler." And I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "People have written papers on this." So he gave me a couple of references. The Toxin Handler. He said, "Every institution needs to have one or more people whose job it is to process the toxin. And when people are feeling low morale, or feeling that something isn't right, they need somebody to share that with. And then that really helped me understand what my job was, because I had no formal leadership role. I'm not in the—on the Shared Governance Committee, or anything like that. But I do bring that toxin in a—I sort of process it and aggregate it, and bring it to leaders. So that's sort of the way my job kind of evolved.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Really interesting. I'm glad you added that.

Warren L. Holleman, PhD:

Yeah.

Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:

Yeah. Well, thank you very much. And I just wanted to say for the record, I'm turning off the recorder at about 27 minutes after 11.

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Chapter 15: A Role as “Toxin Handler”

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