Duties, expectations and EMT training...

As a department head you expect to occasionally be called upon to serve in capacities outside your normal duties (what ever those are). I’ve put together furniture for faculty on weekends (yes, I keep tools in my office). I’ve been called into classes when graduate teaching assistants/faculty can’t remember their passwords or find IT support. I’ve often run a dust mop down the hallway (we are short on all kinds of staff), I’ve chauffeured out-of-town guests to the airport, I’ve picked up muffins and coffee for the office staff… on occasion I’ve driven colleagues to pick up spouses and children and once I had to take a colleague to the emergency room of a nearby hospital.

Most in academe know that the typical department head/chair is a “jack of all trades”… the Swiss Army Knife of the institution. Need a job done? Need to find someone at the last minute to meet a potential student, calm an upset parent, visit with an out-of-town guest? Call the appropriate academic unit… ask for the department head… they are usually in their office… writing another memo or at worst out getting coffee and they have their cell on… relatively easy to find and reel in at the last minute.

Did I mention, “EMT training"? … well, it’s not a formal requirement but lately it’s something I'd recommend if you are considering this job… this summer, maybe it’s not to late for me to start those short courses with the American Red Cross.

Recently I was in Shanghai for collaborative discussions with Chinese colleagues. Shortly after breakfast I was in my room catching up on email (what can I say, it’s my life) when I received a call from a Purdue student whose study abroad group was also staying in the same campus hotel… I'd met these students a couple of days before… the short of it… “George (a fellow Purdue student) is in the breakfast room unconscious… we have to get to the airport.” OK, technically the study abroad experience was over, the lead professor was on the way back to the U.S…. but as usual, a department head was nearby, available and on call.

So, after an unsuccessful effort by a local campus nurse to bring the student to a conscious state, the ambulance arrived, I leaped (well, squeezed) into the vehicle with a Chinese colleague, rode through the streets of Shanghai to a nearby hospital, checked the student in, calmed him when he awoke, worked with hospital medical staff to get through appropriate paperwork, sat next to the student, arranged for the student's costs to be covered and still made it back to the hotel in time to check out and catch the plane back to Indiana and get to my daughter’s high school graduation.

Oh yes, of course, I documented all of this for the official files. I can also report that I've gained a healthy appreciation for this part of the healthcare system in China… the medical staff were efficient, competent, and went out of their way to take care of us... and the service... a bargain.

I don’t think there’s a category for this on my merit evaluation…