00:00:00Troy Reeves 0:01
All right, today is March 15, 2018. This is an interview for academic staff
award winners oral history project. We're here at the Academic Staff Institute
at Union South. My name is Troy Reeves with the UW-Madison Oral History Program.
John, I'm going to shut this door, and while I'm doing-- before I do that, can
you, for sound quality, say your name and spell your last name?
John Street 0:24
John Street, S-T-R-E-E-T.
Troy Reeves 0:27
Okay, I'm going to shut this door and then we'll get going.
John Street 0:29
Okay. So are you a historian?
Troy Reeves 0:36
I am, I have two degrees in history. I don't have a PhD. I have a Bachelor's and
a Master's. So John, as I said, I sent you a list of questions. We're just gonna
sort of systematically go through those. So the first question was, what brought
you to UW-Madison?
John Street 0:55
Well, I actually was a teacher, a high school social studies teacher. And our
boys, our older boy especially, was reaching the age where he really needed
high-powered education. He's one of these kids who just devoured learning. And
we were in Montana, and really the best math they had was at the time was
algebra two. So he's since gone on to become an engineer at SpaceX. So he
needed, he needed the kind of advanced science and math that Madison provided.
At that time, the schools I thought were excellent. He went to Madison West. And
we had done a lot of research about good places to raise families. And this
always came up in the list. So we came here. I started in grad school, for my
PhD, and the boys settled into school and been here ever since.
Troy Reeves 2:07
Great, thank you. So you-- I think you may have alluded to this, saying that you
were a teacher in Montana, but I was going to ask directly [?] sort of what
factors led to your work or research interests?
John Street 2:21
Well, I, I love teaching. I got a PhD in what is called by most people
educational administration, here they call it educational leadership and policy
analysis. But so I was leaving a grad class, this is how long ago it was, got
off the elevator. And right in front of the elevators, huge bulletin board. And
in those days, they post the job listings, paper on the bulletin board, the HR
department had these huge binders that you would go through. So right in the
middle of the board, was a job listing for in the medical school, which I hadn't
considered it up to that point. And so I looked into it and ended up getting a
job in anesthesiology as a medical educator, which is a field that's growing
rather rapidly at this point, then and still. They had a simulation lab, which I
was fascinated with. A very sophisticated lab, small but very sophisticated. And
I had great hopes that I could get really involved with that because it
fascinated me. But despite the, the sophistication of the lab, it wasn't used.
And the primary reason for that was that the--the faculty member in charge of
resident education didn't want to pull residents out of clinical, clinical work.
So it was very frustrating. I was there about five and a half years and then an
opportunity came in my-- open for my present position with obstetrics and
gynecology. So the, the technical title of my position is instructional program
manager. And in my position, I work with medical student curriculum, residency
curriculum, and in this particular position, the most appealing part of the
offer was that they were starting a simulation curriculum from the ground up,
which was just perfect for me. So I took the position, and Meriter Hospital was
very interested in this whole process as well. And they gave our department
space, an old neonatal intensive care unit, which they provided to us and also
remodeled. So we had our own space in control of it. We-- Meriter nursing uses
it as well. But it was just a wonderful opportunity. And we rapidly began
developing curriculum for it. In fact, today was one of our biggest labs of the
year. I just got done with, an hour before I got here. I was up late last night
working on it, and then happened today from nine to twelve. So it's, it's very
fulfilling, simulation, because it's so practical, we use the actual
instruments, surgical instruments, go through procedures, we use homemade
mockups. But they're really effective. And to see the residents respond to the
wealth of knowledge that faculty share. It's, it's, you can't really, it's like
teaching directly, although I'm just supporting the teaching, I'm not actually
teaching, but you get the same kind of fulfillment, knowing that, you know, you
are contributing to somebody's professional development. So it's, I think it's
an extremely effective way of teaching and very fulfilling.
Troy Reeves 7:13
So John, when someone asks, and I'm sure they do, to sort of describe or, you
know, tell them what you do, how do you do that?
John Street 7:25
Well, I do a variety of things. The simulation labs are, are in a lot of ways,
like being a science high school teacher. You've got to arrange the lab, the
curriculum, you got to coordinate. So a little different in this regard, you
have to coordinate faculty and support people, you have to line up equipment.
And then you have to put it all together and make sure that it's ready to go for
the teaching. And then, of course, the hard part is putting it all away, and I'm
sure any science teacher can relate to that. But the other aspects of the job,
which are-- take up more of my time are developing evaluation for medical
students and resident, residency performance. So I got an opportunity to really
design an entire evaluation system for residents. And then, you know, tracking
performance of faculty, residents and the program as a whole, you know,
developing metrics and then tracking those over the years. So it's very
satisfying for me, lot of independent work. It's a field that, like I mentioned
earlier, that is really growing and becoming much more professionalized in in
the medical field. Rather than, you know, in the past. Doctors are very bright
people, and oftentimes creative, coming up with curriculum based on their
experience and the needs they see in their residents or medical students. You
may have people with a background in education, helping to support that. So...
Troy Reeves 9:37
So, John, I'll just-- go ahead.
John Street 9:39
I was just going to say for somebody, I was reading the other day about the
number of PhDs produced by the University. I don't know what hard sciences are
like in terms of job openings, but in the social sciences, there's I think
there's far too many people graduating with degrees that they probably will
never be able to use. And medical education, for people in social sciences, I
think it's a it's a really smart area to consider for job opportunities.
Simulation is, is becoming huge in medical education from the very primitive
homemade kind of models, which are very effective, to very expensive, you know,
industry produced models, which I don't think are very cost effective. But
that's just my personal opinion.
Troy Reeves 10:51
So, I think you touched on some aspects of this, but I want to ask this question
directly. Understanding that there's probably never a typical day, but what sort
of things might make up a typical day?
John Street 11:05
Wow. Well, a typical day. These last couple of days have been typical for a
simulation lab day, in terms of oftentimes having to stay late to make sure
things are ready, then showing up early the next day, making sure things are in
place, and then dealing with the unexpected, like OR nurse who couldn't arrive
at the simulation to teach her station because of demands, surgical demands.
These kinds of things happen a lot in, in medical education, because obviously
patients come first. So there's, there's oftentimes, you know, dealing with the
unexpected, especially when it comes to simulation labs. On other days when
there aren't labs, you know, and a lot of it has to do with responding to
correspondence, and requests for information, and tracking various metrics for
performance of the residency program and residents individually. What I like
about it is that I have complete control over my time, virtually. Unless, you
know, I'm assigned to project but in my years in the position, I've really often
defined what projects I'm going to work on and how they're going to be
structured. So I've really enjoyed that. Which by the way, I plan to retire June
30th. So, so this was the last lab of this sort that I'll be doing. Which is
kind of a mixed, I view it with mixed feelings. It's a ton of work, but then you
get the fulfillment of seeing lights go off. It's a very interesting thing, the,
the faculty member who led it, and he's led this particular lab for eight years
now, you know, he confronts the thing that all teachers confront: and why isn't
this concept coming through? You know, and, and these are extremely bright
people. But you're talking about complex procedures. You know, a simple step in
the procedure, but for some reason, he notices that many residents just don't
get it until they've had more experience themselves in the OR, and oftentimes
they've repeated this particular lab. And then we have one-- last year one
resident comment that that very fact. It's the repetition that finally drums the
realization into your head, you go "ah!" You know, we've all had that, but
sometimes it just takes time and repetition for the, the learning to happen.
Patience, really.
Troy Reeves 14:52
How has, or how have, changes in technology over the last, you know, however
many years you've been doing this, has changed your work?
John Street 15:04
Well, in a lot of ways, it's gotten much easier, like I was mentioning with the
job descriptions. You go from hardcopy to electronic, that makes it much more
convenient, but it also increases your workload because it's much easier for
people to request work from you. So it's, it's a mixed bag in terms of things
are so much easier to research and just a wealth of information immediately
available. But then you look at your email inbox, and it's just dozens and
dozens of emails, some just completely useless. But still, you got to deal with
them. In terms of simulation, simulation's at a point, at a plateau, as far as
I'm concerned, because the simulations-- they can produce extremely expensive,
and increasingly realistic simulation. But oftentimes, it doesn't overcome the
limitations of that technology. If there's a hiccup in the software... we
actually succumbed to what a lot of simulation labs did, and bought some
expensive technology initially. And what happens is only one person can use it
at a time. If it hiccups, you start from square one, you delay the training,
it's an inconvenience, it's aggravating. So we have several simulations that are
primitive by-- compared to the technology available, but much more effective. We
can get several residents working at one time. So, there's a fascination with
technology, especially in simulation, that's really a mirage. Until the virtual
reality technology can get, and it's really improving rapidly, but until it can
get to the point where it's immersive, and you get some haptic feedback, and
the, the patient, the procedure, whatever is fully realistic, that's gonna
that's going to be a real boon for medical training, there's just no substitute
for that. But it's nowhere near that right now. One, one aspect of technology
that I'm involved with is robotic surgery, which is really, really fascinating.
And some people think that somehow it's automatic, but what happens is, a
surgeon sits at a console that has a 3-D screen. So they just get this fantastic
view of the patient. So they're removed, they might be 10 feet away from the
patient, and they have these very minute controls, which control the robotic
arms. I've got to use one once in a simulation, incredibly fine motor movements,
just spectacular. So that's an aspect of medical technology that I think is, is
medical education, because there's a simulation component to it that we're
trying to get residents trained in. There are-- so that's one aspect of medical
education, I think is is wonderful.
Troy Reeves 19:16
So how are you.... if you wouldn't mind sort of explain for, particularly for
this robotic surgery, so how are how are you as an educator involved in this?
I'm assuming in the simulation part of it.
John Street 19:30
Well, a lot of it's logistical problems in terms of-- because there are
limitations on the availability of the simulator. The robot itself is extremely
expensive. And they want to use it whenever possible for surgery because it
offers so many benefits to the patient. It's laparoscopic, which means that it's
not open. It's-- there are ports put in the abdomen, and then the instruments
are placed in the ports. So the advantage is that the healing is much quicker
because the, there's just much smaller wound to conduct it. So it's, the
instruments are in, there's a camera in and then the person is either looking at
a screen and operating thusly, or they're, in the robotic case, they're looking
in the viewer, 3-D viewer. So, the problem we're having is finding time when the
simulator's available, and the residents are available to work on it. So it's a
logistical problem more than anything else. And also defining what exactly--
what the curriculum will consist of, because there's different paths that you
can follow different requirements. So.
Troy Reeves 21:05
So John, I want to shift now to your involvement in any, if any, in academic
staff governance or groups. So the first question is, have you been involved in
any of that?
John Street 21:16
No, not really. I was briefly as a student. But you definitely become aware real
quickly, of the complexity of even the simplest of solutions. You just don't go,
"well, let's just do this." There's just too many stakeholders in virtually
everything, too, for simple solutions.
Troy Reeves 21:47
Okay. So I do want to back up, one more thing about work. And that's work-life
balance. So, I give sort of me as an example, I work at an archive, and I work
nine to five and I tried very hard to not work from 5:01 to 8:59. Sometimes it
works, sometimes it doesn't. So I'm wondering, you know, during your time here,
how would you see your work-life balance?
John Street 22:17
Personally, I thought it has been wonderful. Academic staff life for me and I
think, for most people, is very flexible. It's much like, you know, university
faculty, in terms of determining your own hours, it depends on your particular
position. Because, obviously, depending on the department and expectations, you
know, you're expected to be certain places certain times, but I haven't had that
kind of nine to five structure. I imposed my own structure. But I've always had
the flexibility to, to adjust it, you know, sometimes my wife's got something
going on, or when the boys were in school, they had something going on, I could,
you know, I could be there for it. And then, you know, when the need arises, you
end up working late, you know, to require-- to finish whatever's on the burner
at the moment. But yeah, I found it very, very rewarding in terms of the effect
of my work. And then the flexibility, work-life balance, I thought, couldn't ask
for a better situation.
Troy Reeves 24:06
John, in your position, have you had interaction with faculty? So I wonder if
you have because of that, or just in general, thought about the relationship
between faculty and staff?
John Street 24:23
Well, I was the first person in my position in our department, our department
has grown rapidly in the 11 years I've been there. I mean, just tremendously. So
it was a new idea when I first arrived. And the sim lab was a brand new thing as
well. But I've always found the faculty very cooperative. And it's, it's a
sometimes shocking to me as a teacher. I would have a test, draw up a test that,
like a final exam for a course and I would pass it out. And sometimes I would
wonder at the fact that they're all doing it. They're all going to take this
test. They're human beings, they could stand up and walk out is [?]. And with
faculty, I'll approach them via email or in person. And these are people who,
you know, this particular specialty, obstetrics and gynecology... there are very
traumatic things that happen in birth. There's surgical calamities, there's,
there's all kinds of really profound emotional experiences, these people go
through. And, I've always found them very receptive to my request, you know, and
typically polite and, you know, if they can't do it, they can't do it, but
patient and willing to consider teaching and, you know, extra work basically.
So, yeah, I haven't... I can't off the top of my head, I can think of a really
negative experience I've had with faculty in the medical school.
Troy Reeves 26:25
Okay. So you weren't... I don't... well, I'll ask directly. Were you here in
Madison on September 11th, 2001?
John Street 26:41
I was, actually and I had just been in the job and anesthesiology for five or
six months. And-- no, no, it was less than that, it was four months. And I was
walking through the lobby, then anesthesiology is in UW Hospital, my current
position we're in Meriter Hospital. And I saw all these people gathered around
the TV, looking up at this TV mounted, and it was a real shock. And at this
point, only one building had been struck. And then I went up to my desk, and
then before too long, I hear that the second building's been struck. It was, it
was really shocking, of course.
Troy Reeves 27:47
Do you remember the, anything in the immediate aftermath? Either for your work
or for... or personally?
John Street 28:03
Nothing for work. I mean, of course, everybody's talking at work about it. Just
the, the lack of comprehension about what really happened.
Troy Reeves 28:23
Okay.
John Street 28:23
And just kind of dealing with the shock of it.
Troy Reeves 28:31
So, just a couple more things. So, I'd like to get a little bit of the story
behind the getting this academic staff award. So first off, did you know you
were nominated?
John Street 28:43
Yeah, I did. The person who was coordinating it stopped me in the hall and told
me about it. I thought "oh, that's a waste of time." I really did. But then I
found out there was money associated with it, and they go well, people are
willing to put-- because there's so much work goes into these things. You know,
the letters, and the gathering of materials and everything else. It's kind of
like writing a grant. Well, good luck. And that's, that's actually a large part
of it, as far as I'm concerned: luck. Luck, and there's a certain degree of
politics involved in any kind of award giving. So I'm not overly impressed. I
mean, I read the other people's accomplishments. I thought, now these people
deserve awards. You know, a lot of what was in hard sciences. Which I admire
people who can achieve in that, that field. And I think I'm being completely
realistic about this. I'm not being... it's not false modesty, I just, I just
don't think what I did compares to some of the achievements of these other folks.
Troy Reeves 30:28
What did you think about the, the reception?
John Street 30:30
Oh, I thought that that whole thing was wonderful. Thought it was really well
done. I mean, the Chancellor was there. I just thought it was a great, great
venue, and just very pleasing. It wasn't, it wasn't too long, it was just right.
Brought family and friends and they enjoyed themselves. So yeah, it was a good,
good event.
Troy Reeves 31:04
So, before making sure you have the last word I want to talk-- and it sounds
like strictly apropos to you, since you'll be retiring on June 30, and it's a,
it's a legacy question. It has two parts to it, which is, you know, what do you
feel you'll be remembered for? And is that what you want to be remembered for?
John Street 31:20
You know, I don't, I don't care if I'm remembered, I really don't. You walk
around campus, we were talking about this at an administrative meeting
yesterday, we have an award that's given to residents for compassionate patient
care. People who really are outstanding. And so this was this award was named
the blank-blank Anderson award. A physician, long ago in the department, nobody
knew who it was. Nobody knew him, or really anything about him. So I don't, I
don't want to have my name on a plaque and 20 years from now people go, "who was
that?" and really, nobody cares. You know, the important thing is, what the
award embodies, and that... to me anyway. So, you know, I expect that in one or
two years, people go, "who is that guy that... remember, he used to run the sim
lab. And he did some other stuff." That's what I expect. So I mean, really the,
the legacy, if there is one is what kind of impact have you had on people? Same
thing with teaching, you know. Did you try your hardest to make a difference
with people? Did you help them? Did you support them? And if you did, that's
good. That's what, that's what you're meant to do. So I really don't... I don't
intend to go to any kind of, be a part of any ceremony where they stand up and
go, you know, like, I'm not going to resident graduation this year, because I
don't want to be... I don't want to have "oh, and by the way, we want to thank
them" and then they have two or three people come up, I just don't see the...
would be uncomfortable. Really doesn't mean a whole lot. The people who care
will-- I haven't announced it publicly yet. You know, the department knows,
will, you know, talk to me in [word unclear] or interaction, but I don't... the
legacy thing is not, just not important to me.
Troy Reeves 33:56
So is there anything else you--
John Street 33:58
I'll do, I will add one thing.
Troy Reeves 34:00
Sure.
John Street 34:01
I hope that the simulation program continues to be strong and goes forward. But
my name doesn't have to be associated with it. I just think it's a valuable part
of the curriculum, and it would be a shame if it was compromised in the future.
Troy Reeves 34:27
John, is there anything else you'd like to say either about your time working
here or about your time going to grad school here before we wrap up?
John Street 34:38
Well, this is not politically correct, but I've really enjoyed my time in grad
school for me, and it's kind of related to something we said before the
interview started in terms of being a non-traditional student. I think you, you
gain a lot of perspective and you can really appreciate the opportunity to, to
just focus on learning. I think most people are much better suited for graduate
school when they're a little bit older, as opposed to right out of undergrad,
when they have a little bit of life experience to really appreciate what they're
doing. So I really enjoyed grad school I, I love writing. So I had plenty of
opportunity for that. The thing that's difficult and the part that's politically
incorrect, is that the academic world seems to... people are trying to make a
name for themselves and concepts are diced, sliced increasingly small increments
to where they become, in my mind, meaningless. And these things, these new
concepts are imposed on the student body and, and society. And I think it's
counterproductive. I think, rather than, than increasing society's humanity and
productivity and success, it compromises it by, by pitting increasingly smaller
elements of society against others. And I think the academic world, social
studies I'm talking about particularly, is, it's kind of in a downward spiral. I
think this is reflected in public schools as well. So I'm a little pessimistic.
That said, people can make their own life in, in in the graduate education,
focusing on what they want to do, you know, building their skills, and then
going out and finding a position where they can apply those skills to the
benefit of others. So I don't think... I think the general trend is not
positive. But I think despite that people can build a good life through graduate
education, you know.
Troy Reeves 37:53
All right. Well, John, I want to thank you for the time you gave me today. I
appreciate it. This concludes the oral history with John Street.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai