Re: residents and non competes

Re: residents and non competes

Wayne Renardson

5/2/2006

One day Mr. Kevin Harrell, C.O., reminded me:

KH> [clip] They should not be asked nor be expected to sign them. A
resident is at your facility to receive his/her specialized clinical
training. The certified or licensed practitioners are at your facility
to make sure the residents receive this specialized clinical training.
  
Thank you for that.

I an not a prosthetist but a R-BK amputee since 1969 from a motorcycle
wreck. My cycle and an automobile attempted to occupy the same space at
80 mph and I lost. At the time I was serving an internship (residence)
at Plant City, Florida high school. I'd been studying literature and
philosophy at F.S.U. (where the women are women and the men are, too)
since 1965 and wanted to see if trying to teaching the truths and beauty
found in some poetry was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, or
as long as my patience would survive:).

The notion of a non-compete clause would have then been repugnant, and
as a much older, maybe wiser man, I still find it abhorant. I was
apprenticing to learn something about teaching, about life, about a high
school in the sixties, and how well I would find trying to convey some
of joy found in books to others.

I can imagine Mr. Jim Dagget, who was chair of the English dept.,
offering me, Wayne. Need your sig on this paper. Uhhhhhh, why? It
is a statement that you will not try to get my job if offered to you,
Mr. Dagget might glork. But the amputation interrupted this little
fantasy.

Course there were other nusiances, such as the principal who wanted me
to catch smokers in the boy's room. I suggested to him that I did not
spend years studying literature in order to become a smoke cop. If I'd
wanted to become a tobacco policeman, I'd have attended Police Academy
III. I doubt after that he would have offered me Mr. Dagget's gig.

And the English teachers and wannabees of my acquaintance were usually
in it not to make the big bux, (tho eating is a vital consideration).
The folks I encountered wanted to teach often out of love of their
field. Music, art, literature, math, chemistry, even some who liked
geometry.

KH> Now on the other hand if your intent is to hire cheap labor I can
see where the dilemma lies.

It is not likely the artful teaching of the arts will be subject to
'cheap labor' since some teachers believe they've historically been a
source of cheap labor. Your profession, prosthetics for example, OTOH,
might be subject to the notion of 'cheap' labor.

Another fantasy. Let's say I wanna make some money. I set up a school
in El Salvador or a nice spot like Trinidad and invite prospective
students to learn prosthetics. I hire a couple of hot shots fresh from
the Univ of Washington or Northwestern, or hell, even a west coast
school, and they can teach enough in six months (if that long) to
anyone with an IQ over 78 to bamboozle most new amputees or even some
old fools. Print them a fancy diploma signed by Dr. Feelgood. Talk the
talk. I will hire them at a far cheaper rate than someone with a piece
of paper from a US school.

Go to one of the states in the U.S.A. that requires no license or any
known credential to say, Yeah. I do prosthetics. (I live in one----
Tennessee) and rent a shop in the boss part of town. Cheap....rent. Hook
up 'puter, phone, get a CAD, distribute leaflets to all ortho and
pertinent physicians offering to 'treat' their O&P patients, and wait
for the gimps to hobble thru the door. Oh boy. Fabricate them rigs that
may or may not fit comfortably. But bill insurance for all I can. Indeed.

KH> Thanks for listening Kevin E. Harrell C.O.

Thanks for writing. I will stop the fantasy now. Playing jazz with
some folks and new tunes to learn.


Wayne Renardson
Nashville TN