In my time with the Marines (as I was a Hospital Corpsman who spent 3 years with them as their “Doc”), I learned both Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful) and the try meaning of Semper Gumby (Always Flexible).  So what does that have to do with my blog and my Doctoral Journey?  Everything.

Staying true to my passion, my beliefs and my heart is going to pull me through this long journey, along with my beautiful wife and staunch supporter.  But I am also learning to be always flexible in so much as I have already been contemplating switching up my topic from Military Veterans and Service Dogs in the Workplace: The New Reality of War….to something more at the beginning:  Hospitals and Service Dog programs: The New Fad or a much needed priority…(or something like that).

I had a chat with a friend of mine this morning on the how and why and the where on this topic and they were very explicit about what I need to concentrate on, but also gave me the encouragement to go forth with that idea.  Steering me not completely away from the Veterans, but making me see how hospitals could implement this program to better serve the Veterans and our amazing disabled citizens.  Using Poly-traumatic hospitals and Veterans Hospitals, along with local and even state wide hospitals as “subjects”.

What I have found out from that conversation is that when you get to passionate about a topic, it is very very very hard to peel yourself away from the “personal” aspect of it and see it from a 3rd person point of view, and not the 1st person.  That is going to be pretty difficult for me, but then again, doing the new “form” of this topic will allow me to better dive into the What and the Why, to better serve the Who and the How…of course, the Where should take care of itself…yes?

There is a lot more information on just Service Dogs and Healthcare, but I need to find research in regards to individual programs that hospitals are running, thinking of running, or just refuse to run.  I think that it would be a great disservice not only to our Veterans and disabled citizens,  but to humanity as a whole.

We will see…

So in the mean time…Semper Fidelis, and always Semper Gumby.

 

Lance

post script 🙂

Thank you all for reading and following me.  That in itself gives me motivation and the strength to continue this long arduous journey.