incredible program here in D.C. And I don't know if the title of mentor is even deserved, but I go over it here that you have an opportunity to mentor every day of your life, and I want you to see that. This is one of my favorite quotes, one of my heroes, John F. Kennedy, leadership and learning are indispensable to one another. And what are we all about here doing? Learning, but you need leadership in order to have a conducive environment for learning and education. So I'm gonna go over a few pearls in my life and none are in any particular order, but just some things I've learned and some things to think about when you're going back to work on Monday. So pearl number one, you know more than you think you do. We've all gone to school, we've gone through a million years of education, but people are watching you everywhere. You know that they are watching you because you start looking around, everyone around the hospital, everyone in the clinic, they're all watching you in a good way. You can use this to your advantage, don't be afraid, but use the process, use discipline and treat people with respect, but you have to harness your leadership in order to know that everyone around is watching you. Why? Because you are the leader of the clinic, of the OR, of everything, even day one of your practice. Pearl two, so I went to the Naval Academy and spent much good time here in DC to escape Annapolis. And we had a saying, and we had to say it over and over again. I hear it resonating in my head, and it was ship, shipmate, and then yourself. I want you to think about that for a second. You're thinking about your ship, which is your thousand people that are around you, all on one ship. What do you do to help accomplish the mission? It's all about the ship first. It's not about you, it's about the ship and the mission of the organization. Then you're gonna think about the next person around you. Have the situational awareness to know what's going on on the person around you. And the last thing you're gonna think about is yourself. The problem is we don't always do that. It's all about your people. We've heard this in General Patton. Never teach people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they'll surprise you with their ingenuity. Maybe give them a little guidance, but that's how you really inspire and lead people. And you're gonna have a team. As soon as you start day one, or your teams that you've had for 20 years, understand the team, hire the best you have, and have the ability to build it. If it takes 50 people to interview to find the right one, interview 50. Why? Because you want the right people. Culture change is different, but you can do it with the right leadership and positive attitude. And this is how you cultivate a great team. This is a lot of my team at my retirement that came to me. I was so honored and humbled to have so many there that have helped mentor me along the way. And on the left is my core team that worked with me forever, and years in San Diego and Boston, day to day. Educate and train the team. This is a story where I took the entire New England Patriots medical team, and I said, we need to learn better from our medical leadership and how to do human performance better. And I said, listen, people that know the best about human performance are when I was in Coronado with the SEAL teams. And so their motto is, the only easy day was yesterday. This is right where the bell is, where you ring at the grinder, and you can knock out of Navy SEAL training. It's one of the hardest trainings in the world. But we assimilated with a team that was able to teach and collaborate and have a subject matter educational exchange. It was amazing. Take care of your people. So when I was with the Patriots, fortunately we've had a few successful seasons, and one of the first seasons, we actually won a Super Bowl, and this was the season after that. But when I took over medical, it was about a year and a half in before the Super Bowl, and Robert and Jonathan Kraft, very generous people. The tradition was the medical team got about seven rings, most of the full-time people. For me, that was not acceptable. So I went and negotiated. I'm a great negotiator, but I had to sit down time and time again and spend a lot of my time to get rings for my people. And so it went from seven to 17 of those that I think really put in the time to get the ring and earned it with all their volunteer hours that your old James Voos talk about. Have a mutual respect for everyone. I grew up in a small town. The post office was the general store. We had no traffic light. Butch Barrett, one of my best friends, he works at Knight's Garage. He's great. He never went to college, but he's my best friend. You're never better than anyone, but be great to people like Butch. And they're amazing. I go back and see Butch every single time. Say hi to everyone. Say hi to the custodian. Smile and enjoy and pass on the positive energy. And understand that you have a great job and you have to be positively infectious. It's not easy being a leader, but that's the life we chose. Appreciate what we have, Pearl Five. This is Vinh, Vietnam, and also Tabelo, Indonesia. There was 30 kids with one soccer ball, 30 kids. That's all they had. And the soccer ball was in terrible condition. You would throw it away, but they were happier than anyone. You have OR, house, car, staff that helps you, family, friends, overall have a pretty good life. Keep that in mind, have perspective, stay positive. We're actually in a really good profession. And I think you've heard that. Appreciate what you have. Life is short. This is a great friend of mine, and he was about ready to join me at Mass General. He was about one week from joining me and starting practice in Boston, and he was killed in San Antonio in a car crash. One of my best friends. We have a big SOMO sports day to him. He was HSS trained. I know many of you out there have been mentored by Warren. He's an incredible human being, and I miss him dearly. This was a memorial service in Sheridan, Wyoming. Of course, the hay bales are set up. A very sad day in our lives when we lost someone like Warren Katterman. Yes, I know we've all been through that pain, and keep that in mind. So when you're in your department, around your clinic, be creative, think outside the box, and you have to collaborate. Don't be insulated in just orthopedics. So this is our surgical skills lab. It used to be a closet, and this is in the Navy Medical Center in San Diego. So we had to get funding, and we did it through the DOD with collaboration. We made it multi-specialty. We made it about training for deploying to Afghanistan with a sense of urgency, and the projects that you need to do create a sense of urgency when you need to do it, and we garnered 5.2 million of funding. We have 40 televisions, 25 stations, 10 microscope stations. It's one of the premier labs in the country. Here's Bill Belichick. We were traveling to San Diego after a cold day in Green Bay, and we're gonna be in Green Bay, and he comes to me about three weeks prior. He's, Matt, I don't care what we're gonna do. Hey, you're in San Diego, but we're not going to the zoo. We're not going to SeaWorld. We're gonna be in San Diego just prior to playing the Chargers for about a week. What can we do in San Diego? I don't wanna do the zoo. That's what college teams do. I said, let's go to the Navy Medical Center San Diego, take advantage of what you have around you, and the entire team went to Navy Medical Center San Diego and visited wounded warriors, and I had people like Vince Woolfolk, Julian Edelman, and others in tears leaving the hospital after they visited with many of the patients that had no arms, no sight, no limbs, and it really puts it in perspective. Bill never gives any praise whatsoever. He found me that morning, shook my hand, and smiled, and I knew it was a good event and something that was very meaningful for the team. It's been talked about here many times. Mentorship, you cannot do it without it. I've already talked to many today about some cases, about other things, about life, about my next journey. They can point you in the right direction, and I have so many, and I'm so indebted, and they know way more than you, and there's always someone out there that knows more than you, so be humble and use your resources around you, and I've been lucky and fortunate to have so many great residents and fellows, and they teach me as much as my senior mentors do. It's not about an age thing, or they've been through it. There's people that have had different experiences and walks of life. Take advantage of that. My athletic trainers, my therapists, have taught me probably more about orthopedics than my orthopedic surgeon mentors. Now, OR, whatever, but it's how you take care of the patient. Here's some others, Pete Indelicato, Bernie Bach. There's so many that have helped me along the way. Colonel John Fagan, one of the founders, early founders of this society 50 years ago. A sports surgeon researcher, no better military surgeon, a true military leader, but all would say there's no one better. He also founded SOMOS, which has been now around for 57 years, even longer than AOSSM, and I'm deeply indebted to him. Last couple, you have to make it fun around you. Our job is stressful. People will follow you, and it's okay to have stress. It's okay to have a tough day, but have fun no matter where you are and make it fun. So this is in my house. It's outside of New Hampshire, and I was bored and made a homemade snow gun because we wanted snow earlier. My kids wanted a sled, so we have a homemade snowmaker here. The cops actually came and shut it down because one of the neighbors complained about it, but the police loved it and actually brought their kids, so we still kept it going, and we had a whole neighborhood following of snow in October. It was great on our sledding trail. Well, what happened, a bunch of my friends and then myself when I'm deployed, why not do it in Afghanistan? Let's have fun. Very stressful environment. You're deployed. Sent them all the schematics, the diagrams, how to do it, and we also did it myself, so have fun. Think of unique things. This is the Mercy. I was a surgical director in charge of 650 physicians from all over the world, 12 different militaries, 30 different countries. Incredibly stressful job. As my surgical director said, don't do something in the operating room. Prevent your surgical director that's gonna land on the front page of the New York Times. I said, yes, sir. I hope not, but yeah, we had fun, so we found out that there was a Darwin beer can regatta in Australia. Of course, we had a lot of Mountain Dew and Diet Coke that people drank on the ship, no alcohol, but I said, let's make a soda can boat, so every evening after work was done, we started making a soda can boat, and when we got to Darwin, Australia, we launched the soda can boat. We actually took third place. We would've taken first, I think, except we had so many people of the only Yank entry that they ever had in Australia, and I got the best paddlers. I had rowers. We had all kinds of things. It was a lot of fun, and it became just a whole culture of a ship that was 1,000 people. This is our fellows going down the water just last week in Colorado. You have to have fun. You have to have downtime, but you be the driver of that fun. Lastly, give back, so you're gonna give back to your hospital, your clinic, also your family. You've heard much about that, but volunteer. Our committees are high school. Teach ATCs, teach therapists, the high schools. What James has done in the high school is incredible. Do that. Give back and volunteer, and you are a mentor, even during residency, during fellowship, and especially even day one of practice. The last, appreciate the sacrifice others have made for you. If you look closely in the bottom right, this is San Diego. You see the bridge. It's a cloudy day, probably appropriate because I'm leaving for seven months on the hospital ship. There's my kids. One's not looking because he's not happy. I'm not gonna be around for seven months, but it's very hard at times, and really have to appreciate the sacrifice that others have made for people like myself and many others around you every day. Every day you're late. Every day you're not there. It's the real deal, so please keep that in mind. Have a great journey. It's super fun. Stay positive. Thank you.

Dr. Matt Provencher

leadership

learning

mentorship

positive impact