Naestved

A great last presentation in Naestved. Thanks for your hospitality. 

The District Governor spoke after our presentation. 

On a side note, when a Danish person says their school has the largest collection of stuffed animals, it has a different meaning than if it were said in the states. No teddy bears here!

District Conference

Saturday was the District Conference and it was held in Roskilde. We had a great time and saw many familiar faces from the previous weeks of our trip. 

Here is a picture of Heather Edwards speaking during our group presentation. 

The Danish team that visited Oregon was also there and presented just before us.  It was fun to meet them and hear about their experiences in our state. 

The conference was in Danish, so we were given the option of joining the spouses for lunch and a tour of the Roskilde Church. Here is a picture of the Roskilde Fjord from the northern bell tower of the church. 

Heirarchical vs Decentralized Workplace Structure in Healthcare

It seems as though every workplace has its own unique set of stressors. Workplace stressors can impact employee satisfaction and health, but can also impact the company by reducing productivity, morale, and resulting in more employee sick days. As a medical sociologist I study the structure of the healthcare workplace, and much of the research in this field is focused on the heirarchical nature of physican-nurse-patient relationships, and conflicts among staff. Take the example of a hospital where the doctors are talking down to the nurses, and since the nurses cannot retaliate, they may take out this stress on their fellow nurses. Another stressful aspect of healthcare work, particularly for nurses, is the negotiation of relations with their patients and their patients' doctors, where the nurse may be put in the position to advocate for their patient and potentially go against a doctors' opinion.

With this in mind, I was interested and suprised at what I gathered from my fieldwork here in Denmark I visited a Hospice Center, a Community Health Center, a Hospital, and a Center for Autism, all located in southern Zealand. Although the institutions provide different services and have unique attributes, they all shared a culture of decentralized power and more fluid relationships among management, staff, and clients. This looked very different from the heirarchical American structure. To give a few examples....The manager or CEO's office was in a sort of clear glass box--while the staff and middle management had somewhat private workplaces with no differentiation, I was told that the boss's office was physically transparent and thus the employees could see if they were working or not. Whether this was a joke or not, the structure provides for this kind of check and balance system with upper managment. The structures of each workplace were decentralized, meaning team leaders had full autonomy over how their team was run, as long as they held the company's values in mind and met institutional goals. These goals were always focused on the quality of care, since the profit motive was not as present as in the American system. When a CEO has to make more money, they need to control their workers. When the goal is quality, you want to empower your workers to get the job done. Even the cafeterias did not separate each level of employee, or separate the employees from the clients. That is, the employees and patients ate all meals together. In the case of the hospice center, it motivated elderly adults to eat more...the difference between being told to do something, and being invited to be part of something social. This was the case with the Center for Autism as well. No client was told to do something unless it became a serious situation. The rule was for the employees to simply emulate the behavior expected from the clients.

It is unclear if many of these principles could be implemented in American healthcare centers because the nature of the business of medicine differs so greatly from the Danish context. However, it is certain that creating a culture within an insitution that all involved can get behind, can increase efficiency, effectiveness, and employee morale by relying more on trust and togetherness than punishment and competition.

Ring My Bell

When we arrived in Ringsted, we had a picnic lunch and then toured Saint Bendts church.  Built in 1170 in the Romanesque style, it's the oldest brick church in Scandinavia.  The church has a rich history, having been constructed as part of a Benedictine abbey by the Danish king Valdemar the Great to house the bones of his father, Saint Canute Lavard.  Eleven Danish kings and queens are buried there, second only to the cathedral in Roskilde as a royal burial site.

It was a lovely day, and we were really looking forward to the view from the bell tower.  We were not disappointed.

It was a particular treat for me as our path upwards passed through the attic over two of the rib-vaulted ceilings - I teach about the innovative nature of these kinds of ceilings in my course on technology in the ancient world.  I've never seen one in person before, though, so it was a treat.  The contrast between the highly decorated lower surface and the roughly finished upper one was striking.

For safety reasons the electronic ringer for the bells in the tower is turned off when there are visitors. As a result, when it turned 1:00 PM, someone had to ring the bell.  My team was kind enough to let me do the honors - rather a memorable experience, to say the least.  Too bad it wasn't later in the afternoon so I could have hit the bell more than once.

Danish School Buildings

The Danish primary and secondary schools we have seen are very interesting architecturally.  They seem to share two common characteristics - adventurous design, and an attempt to connect indoor and outdoor space.

I saw this primary school early early on in the town of Solrød Strand.  This water feature runs down the center axis of the school, with buildings on either side.

Even older structures, like this classroom building at Sorø Akademi, are set in nature, and were built in the most modern architectural style of their day.

This new science center at Sorø Akademi is designed to attract bright kids from all over Denmark - you can see the outside from anywhere in the building, and classes are conducted outdoors as well as within.

The new primary school in Haslev replaces three smaller schools, and includes a large outdoor play and teaching area with lots of power plugs outdoors and wi-fi covering the entire area.

One can see that Danes appreciate nature and want to encourage their children to spend as much time outside as possible in all weather.  They also value beauty and good design, and want their children to be exposed to that every day.

From Oregon with Love

We have been so grateful for the hospitality we've received from our host families. Not only have they opened up their homes to strangers, they've included us in their lives and in their families.

As a small token of our appreciation we brought some gifts from home for the more than 30 Danish families that are hosting each of the five of us. We wanted bring uniquely Oregon presents to share a little bit of our home state with each of the homes we're staying in.

While we are definitely not diplomats, all travelers become de facto cultural attachés to some extent. And as informal ambassadors of Oregon we decided to bring myrtlewood gifts, pictures of the geographic diversity in Oregon and Pink Martini cds.

Getting enough myrtlewood salad tongs and Christmas ornaments for 35 families turned out to be much more difficult than I expected. But Stacy, pictured below, was a tremendous help at The Oregon Connection in Coos Bay. She individually wrapped all of our gifts AND they are a subsidiary of Star of Hope, helping adults with disabilities.

So if you're on the south coast and want something uniquely Oregon, stop in to their store to support the local economy and a rural nonprofit. While myrtlewood does grow in Israel too, Oregon is a lot closer :)

Bicycle Infrastructure

Bicycles play an important role in Danish society - many adults commute to work by bicycle, and Copenhagen is known as one of the the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world.

One of the reasons that so many people ride is that the infrastructure makes it easy and safe to do so. Bicycle lanes are usually physically separate from car lanes, and are often well away from roads on their own separate paths.  This makes bikers feel safe, a feeling that is aided by the fact that traffic laws favor bicycles, and those laws are strictly enforced.

Here you see three paths - pedestrian on the left, bicycles in the middle, cars on the right.

This is a separate bike/pedestrian path - notice the underpass to avoid the busy road with cars.

This is the same path as above out in the country - notice how the paths separate for safety. 

I happened to pass a primary school just as the school day started - most of the kids arrived by bike via the path I had been following.  I noticed that none of them showed signs of being overweight - probably not a coincidence, given the exercise they were getting on their bicycles.  

Making Wine From Cherries

For my vocational visit, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Frederiksdal Stevnsbær, a beautiful estate located in the southern part of Denmark, on the westernmost point of the island of Lolland. Due to the northern climate, it's not a place to grow wine grapes. However, three partners (Harald - the estate owner with the perfect cherry orchard whom I met with, Jan - a restaurateur, and Morten a journalist) teamed up to create various cherry wines for the dinner table unlike any that you've tried. The product is now being exported to various countries in Europe and in China with aspirations of being its own Lolland "wine country" one day. It was a pleasure to visit such an inspiring business and see product innovation alive and well.

We made the paper!

Here is a picture from the Haslev newspaper. We toured a fantastic new elementary school there last week. The link follows the picture. 

http://www.sn.dk/faxe/rotary-udveksling-med-stort-program-i-kommunen/artikel/432359

Ready, Set, Go!

Here's a photo of the team living out of our suitcases!  We are visiting the clubs on Lolland and did a presentation for three clubs at a beautiful restaurant. 

Top of the World, Ma!

Rotary sometimes can make your dreams come true.  On my previous visits to Denmark I have often driven across the Great Belt bridge, the second longest suspension bridge in the world.  I longed to pull over and look at it more closely, but it is closed to the general public.

Enter the power of Rotary.  The Susaa Rotary Club arranged for our GSE team to tour the bridge - we walked 1.6 miles inside the bridge , rode an elevator to the top of the 254 meter eastern pylon, and then visited the artificial island in the center of the Great Belt.

Here I am on top of it all - I'm just glad that we were able to take an elevator up.  Heather thought we'd have to climb up a ladder, so she was really happy when we got to ride up instead.

It's hard to convey just how large this bridge is - perhaps this will give you a sense of the shear size of the thing.

Still, it's important to remember that it was human beings who built this edifice.  Fortunately, the graffiti we found inside the structure served as a gentle reminder of that fact.

Thanks much to all of the members of the Susaa Rotary Club for making our visit possible - you rock!

Great first day in Haslev

We started our day at the South Zealand Efterskole.  Such an interesting concept that we wish existed In the US. Here's one of the tour guides, Magnus after he gave a short tour. 

Then we went to the Haslev Recycling Center. You can't take anything that has been turned in, but we we're tempted to take this English to Danish dictionary!

And later we went to a Heating Center that heats the entire town using straw from local farmers. After the tour, we walked up the heating tower to look at some great views of the town.