Matthew Lee – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com Breaking news from the Farm since 1892 Fri, 11 Aug 2017 22:16:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://stanforddaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-DailyIcon-CardinalRed.png?w=32 Matthew Lee – The Stanford Daily https://stanforddaily.com 32 32 204779320 Students make big waves in public service through SIG https://stanforddaily.com/2017/08/09/students-make-big-waves-in-public-service-through-sig/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/08/09/students-make-big-waves-in-public-service-through-sig/#respond Wed, 09 Aug 2017 08:00:04 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1129730 From the United Nations General Assembly in New York to the Center for Disease Control in Zhejiang, China, Stanford students are leaving their mark on the world through Stanford in Government internships.

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From the United Nations General Assembly in New York to the Center for Disease Control in Zhejiang, China, Stanford students are leaving their mark on the world through Stanford in Government (SIG) internships.

Founded in 1963, the student-run and non-partisan SIG initiative, which is affiliated with the Haas Center for Public Policy, seeks to promote political discourse on campus. SIG offers fellowships and stipends, empowering recipients to do unpaid-yet-important work away from the Farm.  The SIG fellowship places students in positions at Stanford partner organizations and provides monetary compensation. The program also provides stipends, which allow students to pursue their own internship positions that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive.

In this feature, The Daily spoke to five students who are a part of this year’s SIG initiative. Here are their stories:

In the states

Jacob Wolf ’19 used a SIG fellowship to chase his interest in education to the California Department of Education (CDE), where he is a member of the department’s accountability and reporting office. Wolf analyzes and interprets evaluation metrics, such as standardized testing, hoping to gain insight in the nature of academic performance and reduce inequality in the school system.

“Right now, the California Department of Education is working on their Every Student Succeeds Act plan, which I’ve submitted to the Federal Department of Education with the different ways that the CDE is going to meet those requirements,” Wolf said. “There was a state board of education meeting this week, so I helped create some summaries of public opinion on the plan, which the board is going to need to approve the next meeting to be able to submit to the Federal Department of Education.”

The Every Student Succeeds Act holds individual schools accountable by moving standardized  testing power from federal to state level, according to Wolf.

“Accountability ultimately ensures that every student, regardless of their background, has access to a fair educational experience that give them the resources they need to succeed,” Wolf said. “Ideally, accountability doesn’t have to exist because schools are already doing all they can, but realistically, accountability is about driving schools to that goal.”

Accountability extends beyond education, especially in diplomatic affairs. Political science major Matthew Wigler ’19 is spending his summer holding public officials accountable for foreign affairs at the political division of the United States Mission to the United Nations in New York, where he represents American interests as an intern for the U.S. delegation.

Wigler said working at the U.N. taught him how to help create the more prosperous world that he envisions.

“It’s not about winning an argument; it’s about finding a solution that’s admissible to everybody that can make the world better for everybody,” he said. “That’s what I want to bring back to Stanford: it’s not about arguments, it’s about dialogue.”

Specializing in global issues at the UN Security Council, Wigler has collaborated ideas to resolve the crisis in Yemen as well as the issue of North Korea and Iran. On a day-to-day basis, Wigler can be found working on UN resolutions, negotiating with other countries and putting together diplomatic cables bound for the White House and State Department headquarters in Foggy Bottom. To fund his mission, Wigler turned to a SIG stipend.

“I’d like to thank Stanford in Government for unlocking that door and enabling this opportunity,” Wigler said. “I’m just one example of many to really benefit from this program.”

Abroad

SIG stipends and fellowships also take recipients overseas. As a fellowship recipient at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva, Switzerland, Anjali Katta ’19 combines her lifelong experience in volunteering with her studies in engineering physics. Katta said a lot of intervention programs work without re-evaluating and updating, which leave some services outdated.

Students make big waves in public service through SIG
Anjali Katta spends her summer assisting the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Switzerland (Courtesy of Anjali Katta).

“The innovation service team was developed in response to lack of transparency, lack of accountability, lack of evidence-based decision making, poor data,” Katta said. “We’re there to create a willingness to move around a change in current programs.”

Katta hopes to bring her desperately-needed science and engineering experience to the organization. There are only three engineers working on energy within the UNHCR for more than 65 million refugees. Most UNHCR workers are legal scholars so Katta hopes her technical expertise can help the UNHCR provide electrical power to refugees.

“A world where UNHCR isn’t purely reactive, and have it be a bit more predictive,” Katta said. “Utilizing data structures and technologies that already exist in the world and staying on track with current technology would be ideal.”

Being predictive also helps in the world of medicine, as human biology and east Asian studies double major Pedro Gallardo ’19 proves through his fellowship at the Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention Center (CDC) in Zhejiang, China, where he studies avoidable hospital diabetes admissions. His work aims to see what percent of hospitalizations could have been avoided if patients were treated during primary care.

At the CDC, Gallardo assists in editing and writing research papers in English to submit them to international public health journals. As the first foreign intern at the center, Gallardo hopes to inspire international collaboration.

“International collaborations are important in understanding how both countries can better tackle healthcare issues,” Gallardo said. “Hopefully by being the first foreign intern I can help contribute, at least a little, to that international collaboration effort.”

Students make big waves in public service through SIG
Pedro Gallardo works to reduce diabetes hospital admissions in China (Courtesy of Pedro Gallardo).

Not too far from Gallardo, Alexis Kallen ’18 is working at the Justice Centre Hong Kong, a nonprofit law firm that advocates for refugee rights. Kallen contributes to research and advocacy, seeking to create a proposal on refugee policy to be submitted to Hong Kong government at the end of the summer.

“It’s been great to work at an actual law firm that has refugees coming in on a daily basis to talk to our staff about their legal cases and their medical and psychological issues,” Kallen said. “This is why I stay up all night reading all of these laws to try to pass all of these tests because someday I want to be a lawyer for these people.”

There, Kallen compares Hong Kong laws to countries with similar laws such as the UK and Australia. She will use these comparisons to make recommendations for improving Hong Kong’s refugee laws.

“I would stress the absolute importance for everyone at Stanford to at least have one solid public service experience because I don’t think you can go into the world –whether that be the legal world, the medical world, any of that–without learning what it looks like to serve other people,” Kallen said.

 

Contact Matthew Lee at 18matthewl ‘at’ students.harker.org

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Stanford Hospital workers picket amidst rising hospital-acquired infections and hospital negotiation attempts https://stanforddaily.com/2017/08/04/stanford-hospital-workers-picket-amidst-rising-hospital-acquired-infections-and-hospital-negotiation-attempts/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/08/04/stanford-hospital-workers-picket-amidst-rising-hospital-acquired-infections-and-hospital-negotiation-attempts/#respond Fri, 04 Aug 2017 20:05:39 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1129706 Union supporters and hospital workers protest Stanford Health Care's employee treatment in the midst of growing hospital-acquired infection rates. Meanwhile, Stanford Health Care tries to reach a settlement with the union through negotiations.

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Stanford Hospital workers picket amidst rising hospital-acquired infections and hospital negotiation attempts
Joseph Corona, a housekeeping assistant for Stanford Health Care, shares his experiences at the picket organized by SEIU-UHW (JESSICA ZHANG/The Stanford Daily).

Hundreds of demonstrators from all over California showed up in support of frontline workers at Stanford Medical Center. Armed with purple banners, megaphones and noisemakers, they chanted “Stanford, Stanford, you can’t hide, we can see your dirty side!” as they paraded around the hospital’s entrance.

Meanwhile, Stanford Health Care (SHC) is trying to reach agreement with the union workers, participating in meetings and negotiations to work with union demands.

This picket was organized by the Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW), one of the largest unions of hospital workers in the western United States, voicing allegations of worker intimidation. Complaints arose from a union-organized July 11 press conference to apparent concerns over irregularities in worker training and sanitation policy.

Hospital administration created a website dedicated to informing the public of the negotiation process that started July 15. The most recent meeting was held on Aug. 2. An official Stanford Health Care/Stanford Children’s Health media statement has been issued in response to this picket. Additional negotiations are planned for Aug. 9, 16 and 23. The current union contract expires on Aug. 29.

SEIU-UHW claims intimidation

On July 26, 2017, SEIU-UHW organizers joined a National Labor Relations Board charge against SHC, alleging that union-affiliated employees were harassed, threatened and intimidated for their role in a July 11 press conference discussing infection rates at the hospital.

Joseph Corona, a housekeeping assistant at SHC who participated in the July rally, claimed to have been the subject of scare tactics by management for his role in the issue.

“After speaking at the July press conference, I received more attention from management and security,” Corona alleged. “[They] started ordering security guards who were pretty big in size to approach me in negative, aggressive ways to intimidate, distract, even stalk myself and other people who provided information.”

Tom Parker, a spokesperson for the SEIU-UHW, alleged that workers were prevented from attending the Aug. 3 informational picket.

“I only have it second-hand, but I’ve been told that workers, particularly in the housekeeping department, were told that they couldn’t come out. The only way they could come to the picket is if they were on their break or off their shift,” Parker said.

The claim was repeated by several other union demonstrators at the rally. Although 500 people were expected to participate, organizers estimated the crowd top off at 300.

SHC Corporate Communications and Media Lead Patrick Bartosch said the union has previously pressured SHC to meet union demands, dismissing allegations of SHC preventing employees from picketing and accusing the SEIU of bringing in outside demonstrators to misrepresent hospital staff.

“Similar to the union’s July 11 press conference where it released misleading and outdated information about our infection rates, the informational picket is another example of SEIU-UHW trying to put pressure on the Hospitals to meet its organizing demands,” Bartosch wrote in an email to The Daily. “In an attempt to grow the union’s event, we heard SEIU-UHW bused in additional people from the surrounding areas to join.”

Union alleges sanitary problems

For the second year in a row, the hospital has had its Medicare subsidies reduced by the Center for Medicare Services (CMS) for infection-related issues, according to Healthcare Finance and the CMS website. On a CMS scale of the number of hospital-acquired infections with ten being the worst level of infections, SHCHC scored a seven out of ten.

One of these major concerns is of Clostridium difficile (C. diff), a bacteria that causes inflammation of the colon and can lead to extreme diarrhea, abdominal pains, nausea and fever. The bacteria is spread through contact with infected area and can live for long periods of time on surfaces.

The problem is that patients have been acquiring the disease after being admitted into the hospital for other infections.

In a Feb. 2016 article, however, Lucy Becker Professor in Medicine and Microbiology and Immunology Lucy Tompkins attributed high C. diff rates to a more stringent test, a fact that government regulatory bodies do not include in their data.

Union members alleged that these issues arise from poor training and education, chronic understaffing and communication issues. In the Aug. 3 press conference, several SEIU members shared their concerns with management policy.

Salyna Nevarez, an SHC phlebotomist, spoke about how understaffing leads to cutting corners.

“I’ve witnessed employees of all ranks fail to follow infection control policies, I’ve witnessed employees removing their [personal protective equipment] incorrectly after moving out of an isolation patient room, resulting in cross-contamination,” Nevarez said. “I’ve walked into an improperly marked room containing a patient with C. diff, and I didn’t know until the nurse told me. These are preventable mistakes.”

Nate Anderson, a transporter who moves patients in and out of the hospital via gurneys, spoke about a transition from bleach wipes to alcohol wipes and OxyCide. When he questioned the effectiveness and availability of these new cleaning materials, he claimed to receive unsatisfactory answers from his directors and managers.

“If you ask three different people what’s the right infection prevention protocol, you’ll get three different answers: this has consequences,” Anderson stressed. “They’ve tested me for tuberculosis three times in a year and a half because of fears of exposure. It puts workers like me at risk, but more importantly, it puts our patients at risk.”

SHC responded to charges of quality issues by pointing toward distinctions in other metrics.

“SHC’s Standardized Infection Ratio score actually exceeds the industry benchmark at preventing infections,” wrote Bartosch. “We are extremely proud of SHC’s overall quality rating, which summarizes up to 57 quality measures and provides a hospital performance rating between 1-5 stars.”

Negotiations and politics

The union rally received support from several local elected officials. Vice-mayor of East Palo Alto Ruben Abrica attended to show his support for the union’s efforts.

“I’m here to express my support and congratulate you on taking care of all people who need help,” Abrica said. “Obviously, all jobs are important. But there’s something about this one in particular where you’re dealing with people and their health. You’re risking your own health, and that’s just not right.”

Ultimately, however, negotiations must occur between SHC and SEIU-UHW leadership.

Linda Cornell, a unit secretary at the hospital and prominent speaker for the union, claimed that the hospital officials have neglected SEIU demands.

“We initially tried to set up a meeting with the CEO and he agreed, but then he sent a message back to us [with] restrictions: the meeting would be with HR, not the CEO; that he was going to restrict who could be at the meeting and he was going to restrict what could be talked about,” Cornell said.

Medical center officials, on the other hand, iterated their commitment to a fair bargaining process. Bartosch explained that they have had seven bargaining sessions so far, offering economic improvements and careful consideration of SEIU-UHW proposals.

“Our pledge throughout these negotiations is to bargain in good faith to reach a mutually acceptable agreement that provides wage increases and other improvements that support our employees and their profession,” Bartosch wrote.

 

This article will be updated with further comment from SHC administration.

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated Joseph Corona’s title as an Employee Benefit Specialist, when Corona is in fact a housekeeping assistant, or Environmental Services worker (EVS). Additionally, spokesperson Tom Parker was incorrectly listed as community organizer Tony Parker. The Daily regrets these errors.

Contact Matthew Lee at 18matthewl ‘at’ students.harker.org and Jessica Zhang at jessica ‘at’ stanforddaily.com.

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Stanford wins 23rd consecutive Director’s Cup https://stanforddaily.com/2017/06/28/stanford-wins-23rd-consecutive-directors-cup/ https://stanforddaily.com/2017/06/28/stanford-wins-23rd-consecutive-directors-cup/#respond Wed, 28 Jun 2017 08:00:09 +0000 https://stanforddaily.com/?p=1129268 Stanford earned its 23rd consecutive Division I Director’s Cup this year, accepting the trophy with 1,536 points compared to runner-up Ohio State’s 1391.751. The Director’s Cup recognizes athletic programs based on a tally of NCAA championship achievements across all men’s and women’s sports.

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Stanford earned its 23rd consecutive Division I Director’s Cup this year, accepting the trophy with 1,536 points compared to runner-up Ohio State’s 1391.751.

Established in 1993, the Director’s Cup recognizes athletic programs based on a tally of NCAA championship achievements across all men’s and women’s sports. Stanford has won every single cup since the University of North Carolina clinched the the very first cup. Stanford has managed to capture the award every year since. The Director’s Cup is an award that honors a university’s entire athletics department, taking into account the achievements of every single sport and student-athlete.

Men’s soccer coach Jeremy Gunn accepted the trophy at the yearly meeting of the National Association of Collegiate Directors in Orlando, Florida, on June 14.

Jenna Gray ’20, a setter on the championship-winning women’s volleyball team, said she appreciated that the award recognized the entire athletics department instead of just the first-place teams.

“I like that they recognize our whole entire athletics team and department,” Gray said. “There’s so many teams that I know were in the Final Four and the championship, but I think that all teams deserve to be recognized because everyone works so hard every single day.”

Stanford’s push for the 2016-2017 kicked off the season with national championships in women’s volleyball and men’s soccer.

Grant Fisher ’19, a cross country student athlete and 1,500 meter champion said that seeing people he knew from his dorm and classes winning championships encouraged him to train hard and fight for a title this season.

“Right off the bat: in the fall and the winter, teams were winning national championships very quickly this year, and I think just seeing that was definitely motivation for everybody,” Fisher said.”

In the spring, the Cardinal added national championships in women’s swimming and water polo. When asked about what makes this sustained success possible, Fisher attributed Stanford’s achievements to the coaching staff and administrators investing a lot of time and cultivating encouraging environments.

“I think something unique about Stanford is that the administrators really, really trust the coaches and let them have a lot of autonomy in doing their day-to-day routines and what they feel is best for their team,” he said.

Contact Matthew Lee at 18matthewl ‘at’ students.harker.org

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