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David Grainger, Ph.D., professor and chair,…
Science Topics
Innovation Transcription
It comes from my father who said, "You have to leave this world a better place than you entered it." And that's my core value, I want to leave this world a better place and there is no better way that I can ensure that it's a better place than by implementing ideas that help people. It's something I wish. I wake up every day excited about what I do. You give back to the world that has provided to you.
There are a lot of innovative things that are reported in journals that never, ever see the light of day and the common person never sees their impact. The fact that somebody thought of something that is buried in a journal somewhere, no meaning to me. For me, innovation is seeing that impact in the real world. My professional career requires so much input from so many sides that one person thinking that they can do it all I think is quite arrogant.
I think collaboration in the 21st century is essential. I don't think that I am capable personally in this current world of representing all the dimensions that I operate in. I have to be fed ideas and information constantly by the people surrounding me. There is no possible way that I can understand how to deliver a drug to a tumor unless I see a surgeon and have that surgeon show me how. Now I have the ideas to go back and make that work.
So I think my value as an educator is based entirely on connectivity, on being able to relate exactly what I'm teaching, to exactly what I know is happening in the real world. I think you have to enable students of all ages. They come in with naÔve ideas and you can easily brush them aside and say, "What do you know? You have not been trained in this area." But I think that they come with a seed and that seed you have to consider seriously because they often times have a different perspective that I don't have the luxury of thinking about.
So when they dump this idea on your table, rather than just brushing it in the trashcan, often times I'll try to think all right I'll buy into this and see how this might work. See if it has any basis for reality and if it does, then give them a chance to show me. My personal philosophy is that this education process has to prepare someone to go innovate with impact, that these are always targeted toward some end game. That's impact for me, that's innovation.
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Vivian Lee, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A.
Senior Vice…
Science Topics
Innovation Transcription
There's a great quote by Thomas Edison that I love. "If there's a better way, find it."
I think if you have that approach when you look out in the world, you realize that there's always a better way to do what we're doing now. One of the things that's interesting about being in an academic medical center is that you're not just a healthcare delivery system, you have students, and trainees around, and then of course you have many, many researchers.
It's really in that environment is that you can come up with some of the most creative solutions that we need in healthcare, because you have the brilliance of these researchers, and then you're training students, and trainees who are always questioning "Why do we do things this way? Why can't we do it that way? "
Because we have the resources to answer their questions through our researchers, I think we have the opportunity to create whole new ways of thinking that we never did before.
I'm very motivated when I think there's a vision that seems very clear to me, that requires bringing together people from all different backgrounds, from all different perspectives, and getting them to work together successfully.
The value added comes from different backgrounds, different life experiences, trained in different fields of specialty, creativity. And the great new ideas come at those interfaces.
All of us feel a responsibility to train the next generation of researchers, educators, and healthcare providers. As a result we're not just looking at trying to solve the problems today for tomorrow, but we're looking at trying to solve them for years to come.
My highest hopes for the University of Utah are that we really make a difference to the world, we make people better, and healthier, and happier.
The pieces are already here, the talent is already here, what we really need to be able to do is to allow that talent to flourish, and to provide the overall direction for where we want to go. And then kind of step out, get out of the way, and let everyone move us forward.
To know that individually those people are all doing great things, and they're advancing in their own fields, but by bringing everyone in that room together, and to feel those sparks go off, it's incredibly satisfying.
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