The "ah-ha" moment! Nicholas S. Mills -- vcom
One of the toughest jobs for SAAO Presidents is imitating your predecessor at first, balancing time, and then making your presidency your own. This was especially tough for me because I am the second president for our young chapter. One of the main tasks for our chapter is constructing OMM reviews for first and second year members and again for the general classes. Imitating what was done before me was stripping me of study-time and my grades were starting to suffer. Through a few trials of applying new ideas an “ah-ha” moment for our executive team and a new system of reviewing OMM has become our new standard. I write this, keeping officers of other young chapters in mind.
When stepping up to the role of President, it was understood that I was in charge of making a technique list of all the techniques that had been covered in lectures and labs, demonstrating step-by-step each technique to the members and then again for everyone. Doing these tasks meant hours of typing and prepping, on my own time, to make sure that I didn’t lead anyone astray. After prepping, I had to schedule two review times that lasted at least two hours each for each class. Trying to schedule up to four reviews to cover both first and second years’ classes in a span of two weeks on top of other scheduled exams is a prescription for transforming into a sleepless zombie. I quickly added the task of forming a new system for reviews to our executive team’s to-do list.
Many things were applied in attempt to relieve my stress-load. At first I started splitting up the technique list into sections and assigning one to each officer. They were to type it up, prep for each section, and become the lead for their section in each review. While delegating is the key to an optimal leader, our ever changing schedules left me without all of my officers for all of the reviews. So while one would be able to lead their section for the general class review they may not have been able to lead it during the SAAO review. This method still placed me in a position where I had to prep for everything, like before, just in case someone didn’t show. I was at the point of throwing up my hands and giving up.
After meetings with our advisor and sharing my concerns and attempting a few other things, I found myself in a semi-panic mode last block. With the second years having four exams and our OMM practical in the same week, both classes had their OMM practicals in the same week. Luckily our class president and SAAO member was found to be an outstanding technique list producer and agreed to start sharing his lists to serve as the official technique list. This was a major relief on my end; however, I was still in a panic because there was no way I would be able to fully prepare for practically two practicals. Walking into the first SAAO review for that week, not fully prepared, I made a split second decision. I assigned one technique to each member and asked them to review it and master it. Then I asked everyone to review the technique list and go review with the “master” of each technique that they felt they needed to. Our usual two and a half hour review turned into approximately 45 minutes! What happened in that review excited me and the other officers.
The following class review was of no stress to me. It actually filled me with excitement and contentment. Throughout the six OMM labs were 12 different numbered stations. Each station was for one or two of the techniques. The “masters” of each technique stayed at their particular station and reviewed their technique as classmates rotated through. When all this was in action, I took a look around and the “ah-HA” moment happened. For the first time members were fully engaging in OMM with demonstration and small-group discussions, the length of the review was approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour, and the requests to join SAAO sky-rocketed!
The best part about structuring reviews in this fashion: NO STRESS! It is actually really fun. This is how VCOM-Carolinas’ SAAO Chapter will conduct reviews in the future, until a new idea makes it even more efficient. Now, the executive officers are currently in the process of writing a manual for reviews to be added to our chapter notebook. Our next goal is to make sure that our next set of officers transition into their roles with the utmost ease. If you are a part of a new or young chapter, I hope this article may assist you in your next review.