In my earlier critiques of the failure of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP), and the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (SDBP) titled “Why developmental and behavioral pediatrics faces a recruitment collapse,” I argued that “management presence with out management motion is theater.” The SDBP technique had no actionable objects.
Any navy historian will let you know that along with an general technique, it’s a must to think about your assets (logistics) and ways. This was epitomized by the back-and-forth wrestle between Gen. Rommel and a number of British generals within the deserts of North Africa between 1940 and late 1942.
Both sides may take territory till their provide traces stretched too skinny. A sustained push by the British was a results of American entry into the warfare and provides like howitzers and tanks, that Gen. Montgomery constructed up earlier than the Second Battle of El Alamein.
The availability traces have been secured with the addition of American naval and air energy. Additionally, the Allies invaded Morocco and Algeria making a two-front warfare.
Normal Eisenhower let Berlin bleed down to almost the final Soviet; Patton secured his flank at Pilsen however obeyed orders to halt. The Czech resistance was left to Soviet tanks, and Prague’s liberation delayed for many years.
The end result was three years of relative liberation for Czechoslovakia till the Soviets took management in 1948. The Czechs tried to insurgent within the Prague Spring of 1968. The Prague Spring of 1968 was crushed beneath Warsaw Pact tanks. The seedlings of liberalization smothered, the lesson ignored. However the Czechs have discovered the lesson. They know, for certain, that Putin needs his remaining tanks again in Prague once more.
Putin thought Kyiv would collapse in three days. He overstretched provide traces. A million casualties later, Russia bleeds once more. He, like pediatric management, by no means discovered from historical past.
Pediatrics ignores the teachings of logistics.
In pediatrics, the identical failure to safe provide traces (educated specialists, sustainable packages, measurable outcomes) has left youngsters stranded in deserts of neglect. The “geniuses” of the pediatric “management” fail to know logistics and ways. They’re incapable of studying from historical past. When confronted with a disaster in developmental care of kids, they trot out the identical previous “options” that failed up to now. Kids, like nations, can’t afford leaders who recycle failure.
When establishments recycle failed management, it’s like slapping a retread tire on a truck: spitting rubber, shedding fragments, and leaving a path of waste. As an alternative of traction, you get the identical failures repeated, whereas these of us who got here to rebuild are left to witness the wreckage. Each recycled chief is one other bald tire, slipping within the rain, skidding on the ice, leaving households within the ditch. They’re the casualties of pediatric management failure.
Success by way of technique, not theater
After I efficiently utilized for the Management Schooling in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities grant and created the Ohio Rural Developmental and Behavioral Initiative, I had an overarching imaginative and prescient and technique. To it, I added documentation of assets I had out there (logistics) and a plan to hold out the measurable duties at hand (ways and measurable outcomes). That’s the reason my utility ranked fifth out of the 25 accepted and funded functions, and because of this this system stays robust after 1 / 4 century. My rivals had no logistics. No ways. No outcomes. Simply theater.
However the “woke” pediatric management maintain former navy officers in disdain, regardless of our information of success. I improvised, tailored, overcame, and constructed packages that endure. They recycled, retreaded, and failed. That’s the distinction between command and theater.
As a result of I used to be not allied with the management, I used to be blackballed and my experience by no means put to make use of. Pediatric management couldn’t see previous official criticism. Like petulant youngsters, they wished I might go away and die in obscurity. Even after retirement, I’ve reached out to supply my expertise. I stay tall and powerful within the area of public opinion. However I’m banned from their sandbox area and toys.
After I look on-line, I’m not listed as a reformer as a result of I didn’t rely on the grace of the pediatric management. I used to be an impartial. A insurgent with a trigger. I refuse to roll over like Congress and beg for a stomach rub for doing the president’s doing, together with warfare crimes.
Management with out logistics is theater. Technique with out ways is fantasy. I constructed packages with imaginative and prescient, assets, and measurable outcomes, and so they endure. Pediatric management recycled failures, blackballed experience, and banned voices. The result’s wreckage. The distinction is obvious: I improvised, tailored, overcame. They carried out theater. And youngsters paid the worth.
That’s the ledger of failed command.
Ronald L. Lindsay is a retired developmental-behavioral pediatrician whose profession spanned navy service, educational management, and public well being reform. His skilled trajectory, detailed on LinkedIn, displays a lifelong dedication to advancing neurodevelopmental science and equitable techniques of care.
Dr. Lindsay’s analysis has appeared in main journals, together with The New England Journal of Medication, The American Journal of Psychiatry, Archives of Normal Psychiatry, The Journal of Youngster and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, and Scientific Pediatrics. His NIH-funded work with the Analysis Models on Pediatric Psychopharmacology (RUPP) Community helped outline evidence-based approaches to autism and associated developmental issues.
As medical director of the Nisonger Middle at The Ohio State College, he led the Management Schooling in Neurodevelopmental and Associated Disabilities (LEND) Program, coaching future leaders in interdisciplinary care. His Ohio Rural DBP Clinic Initiative earned nationwide recognition for increasing entry in underserved counties, and at Madigan Military Medical Middle, he based Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) CARES, a $10 million autism useful resource heart for navy households.
Dr. Lindsay’s scholarship, profiled on ResearchGate and Doximity, extends throughout seventeen peer-reviewed articles, eleven guide chapters, and forty-five invited lectures, in addition to contributions to main educational publishers reminiscent of Oxford College Press and McGraw-Hill. His memoir-in-progress, The Quiet Architect, threads testimony, resistance, and civic obligation right into a reckoning with techniques retreat.
