For a guy as busy as he must be (or have been), he was pretty willing to converse with people. My dad and I spoke to him for awhile, basically chit-chatting, at several of my dad's follow-up appointments.
OT: NJ is Second in Nation in Quality of Life
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He is the bomb. He is a great conversationalist- the kind of person you could talk to at a tailgate or a party for hours and not get bored. Besides the Max Gomez thing, we had several discussion on a variety of things, all of which he had a very funny take on. My case/situation was so minor, I never got to see him again after my surgery. He's got better things to do than to talk to me.
He also handled a fellow firefighter in Monmouth County, and when I was on a kidney cancer survivor message board, he had quite the fan club over there.
But the whole experience and my positive outcome really instilled that every day is a gift, and it is much better to leave people happy and laughing than upset or angry.
I was only 24 when I was dealing with all this and to have someone like Russo make light of everything was actually helpful to my situation. Everyone at Sloan was just wonderful from doctors to NPs to nurses. It helped the nurses liked me so I always got a private room. :)
The chemo I had was an experimental treatment at the time to help cure/shrink the tumor what I had. It destroyed me so I would have to stay in patient every round for 10-14 days. I think I was the 7th or 8th person to go through it at the time.
The chemo I had was an experimental treatment at the time to help cure/shrink the tumor what I had. It destroyed me so I would have to stay in patient every round for 10-14 days. I think I was the 7th or 8th person to go through it at the time.
We've come a long way from 10 credit downgrades, haven't we.
A governor who not only has upgrades rather than downgrades but doesn't call rival schools to conference on shutting down our basketball program, it's pretty nice!
I will have to check with my mom to see if Russo was her doctor because beside her 2 lung cancer episodes she also had kidney cancer tumor
Her lung surgery was done by the same doctor who treated RBG.
Sounds rough. Glad you had a good outcome. And yes, the MSK people, from the scheduling staff to the surgeons are really awesome. We even had a guy who was mopping floors overhear my dad ask for some water, the guy said "I'll get it", put down his mop, washed his hands, and went and got some ice water to give to my dad. Unbelievable. I was probably most impressed he washed his hands. LOL
From what I understand the entire staff goes through extensive training about providing service to people undergoing stressful times.
They feed off of the belief that they owe their patients and their family comfort and service
Just being a Rutgers fan is always stressful times. They'd never have enough resources.
It's was clear to me, after numerous visits to several MSK NYC facilities, and MSK Basking Ridge, that they invest a lot of time and effort, organizationally, in training and continuous improvement programs, etc. They must have really good hiring practices as well, because I've never met anybody in their facilities that was less than wonderful to deal with.
Also, and this will sound like I'm joking, but I'm not, the MSK hospital in NYC seemed populated by an amazingly good looking staff. It was actually pretty weird; like being surrounded by models. Their other facilities, that I visited, were a much more normal distribution of attractiveness.
I could believe all that since I know a gal who works there and she's a stunner.
People ask her if she's famous when they see her on a train
5.30 in....
My radiologist tech is hawt.
Nicole Saphier, MD is director of breast imaging where I go for my annual checkups at MSKCC Monmouth. Should I request breast imaging, even though I had a kidney issue?
She does a lot of TV - mostly Fox I believe
She sounds like a good doctor too
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It actually hasn't. One of the benefits of living in NJ is outstanding healthcare options. One great thing about NJ is ready access to MSKCC and their having not one, but two locations in NJ. How's that for being on topic?
oh agreed...but when you start talking about the attractiveness of particular doctors and their spouses...its a step too far.
As I said earlier I spent many summers in a shore house with Sloan nurses.
You say that. But this is important stuff.
To prove it, and speaking of rails, hop a train into NYC, head up to the MSK hospital over on the upper East side (easy by subway). Walk into the lobby and sit in one of the comfy chairs. You’ll instantly develop a bad case of Swivelheaditis just like I did when I was sitting there.
I never wanted to leave. Now that I’m talking about it, I want to make the trip in just to hang out there for a bit.
That’s what I’m talking about. At the hospital, everybody working there was a hottie. It was honestly disconcerting.My radiologist tech is hawt.
Nicole Saphier, MD is director of breast imaging where I go for my annual checkups at MSKCC Monmouth. Should I request breast imaging, even though I had a kidney issue?
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The better way to travel, for me at least, was to take the ferry from Highlands or Atlantic Highlands, and walk up 1st Ave to 68th. Have not done it for a couple of years, but that is a beautiful part of NYC (hope it still is), easily accessible by ferry from NJ. Also liked walking by Dangerfield's Comedy Club.
The teacher pay penalty has hit a new high: Trends in teacher wages and compensation through 2021
Over the last 18 years, EPI has closely tracked trends in teacher pay. Over these nearly two decades, a picture of increasingly alarming trends has emerged. Simply put, teachers are paid less (in weekly wages and total compensation) than their nonteacher college-educated counterparts, and the...
www.epi.org
To nobody’s surprise teachers average weekly wage in every state is less than average college grads. In NJ they earn 4% less, which is near the best in the country. However, when benefits are included NJ teachers earn more than college grads on average. You get what you pay for and NJ is at or near the top in public education.
Note: average weekly wage is not annual wage/salary. Teachers are considered to be working 35 weeks.
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The teacher pay penalty has hit a new high: Trends in teacher wages and compensation through 2021
Over the last 18 years, EPI has closely tracked trends in teacher pay. Over these nearly two decades, a picture of increasingly alarming trends has emerged. Simply put, teachers are paid less (in weekly wages and total compensation) than their nonteacher college-educated counterparts, and the...
To nobody’s surprise teachers average weekly wage in every state is less than average college grads. In NJ they earn 4% less, which is near the best in the country. However, when benefits are included NJ teachers earn more than college grads on average. You get what you pay for and NJ is at or near the top in public education.
Note: average weekly wage is not annual wage/salary. Teachers are considered to be working 35 weeks.
Took a quick scan and it appears to me that MDs, JDs, MBAs and possibly professional athletes are included in the comparative group. That would skew things a little.
Other than pro athletes, why isn’t it appropriate to include all those other people in a comparison of compensation with teachers?
All have graduate degrees which boost their compensation. You can quibble about an MBA having the same level graduate education as a teacher who has a masters, but investment bankers skew things in and of themselves as a very small and very highly compensated group. And I'll bet teachers with a masters earn higher than the average teacher compensation.
Masters don't usually lead to a very big raise for teachers. In any event, when you compare salaries it's hard to say teachers are overpaid. Many are compensated about how they should be; in some places they are underpaid. Very few are overpaid, though there are probably some. The entire country depends on an educated populace. Why do people think places like Mexico still do poorly? They don't educate their kids. And if our kids were so badly educated and teachers so bad we couldn't possibly be so successful.
All I'm saying is that comparing compensation of someone with a BA with someone who has a 3 or 4 year graduate degree is an apples and oranges comparison. And including those in a control group skews the results.
Yeah, but I think that raises questions about national perception and priorities.
It seems that you (and just about everybody else in the US) tend to automatically view teaching as a job that isn't nearly as valuable as doctors, lawyers, business owners (MBAs), or just about any other professionals. And the fact that public school costs already hit people's wallets hard, in terms of local taxes, means people are generally heavily biased towards keeping teach pay as low as possible.
I think this perception and taxation bias harms us as a nation. Overcoming it, elevating teaching to a high-paying, high-demand, highly competitive job would not be easy (to put it mildly) but would, IMO, be worth it.
The article says this:
"To obtain an apples-to-apples comparison of earnings between teachers and nonteacher college graduates, we must control for any systematic differences in factors that typically affect pay, including a worker’s age, formal education (B.A., M.A., professional degree, or Ph.D.), marital status, race/ethnicity, and state of residence."
So I assume they're comparing only those with bachelor’s degrees.
Which is ironic because it's teachers who educate all those people. Sure, not every teacher is a gem, same as with any profession, but many are. I think a lot of people simply don't remember where they learned stuff so they don't give teachers the credit they deserve. People have bad memories: according to Carl Sagan, there is an essay from ancient Mesopotamia where an adult complains that kids today are not as well educated as their parents, something we hear with each generation. I believe this is because a lot of people don't remember what they were like as kids--they tend to remember themselves as having the skills and knowledge they actually acquired later.
This line of argument has a fatal flaw. Especially in NJ. You shop for schools by shopping for houses in towns with the level of school you want. The good schools get families to want to move in... and pay more to be able to have access to those schools. Property values go up. More educated, richer families move in... and the cycle continues. You can buy in the WWP, Montgomery, princeton, Chatham, Livingston districts. Or if you can't... take a step down until you can buy the best for what you can afford in an area that's convenient for your lifestyle.
I appreciate your point but if you want teachers to be viewed the same as doctors and lawyers it seems that the gateway into the profession needs to be raised significantly. Let’s start with the basics — in order to become a doctor or a lawyer you need to get into an advanced study program. Granted, not all doctors/lawyers are Einsteins, but it takes more than the average student to even get in. Next, a lawyer studies for 3 years, and doctor years longer, before they ever get to actually do the job. There’s also the financial burden of med/law school. Finally, there are rigorous tests required to become licensed.
If teachers are willing to study, take on hundreds of thousands of dollars on debt, go through threshold testing and not start earning a pay check until they’re 25+ years old, then we can start talking about comparing how they’re paid as opposed to doctors and lawyers.
And, to be clear, this is not a comment on the ability to teach. There are some excellent teachers.
Arizona and Florida are decreasing the requirements to become a teacher instead of increasing standards because so few teacher applicants. I see that their maximum salary peaks in the 60’s while in NJ teachers can begin at 60’s. We can’t discuss teachers as a whole since it definitely difference in each state.
In Arizona you can purchase a decent 3 Bedroom/2 Bath house for under $325,00 in many areas, with property taxes under $2,000 per year and lower income taxes. You think teachers in low cost of living areas should be paid the same as in insane cost of living areas like NJ?
Agreed, the two things (financial reward and hard initial effort to get into the field) go hand in hand.
And that's the hard part. We need to make it much harder to become a teacher at the same time we make it much more financially rewarding. But we also have to do something to ensure continuity of available teachers during the time between implementing those two things. That "gap" forced by changing the system would be problematic to solve. Doable, but difficult.
I agree that there are plenty of excellent teachers today. Some who are high IQ and could do anything they want. But they love educating. They would endure additional education (many that voluntarily seek continuing education their whole careers).
The problem is that there are also plenty of teachers who are just phoning it in, or who aren't great presenters (a necessary skill in a great teacher, IMO). Knowing a subject and teaching a subject are entirely different things.
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