Penguin Hall of Fame

The Cast of "Your Iceberg Is Melting" by Eun Paik, WU CAP Fellow 2011-2013

Anatole France wrote a delightful satire called L'île des Pengouins or Penguin Island. Published in 1908, the book follows the rise of a penguin civilization catalyzed by a monk's severe visual impairment. The poor man gets lost at sea, until his bark takes him to an island occupied by penguins, sociable bipeds that he understandably, since they look very blurry,  mistakes for heathens at risk of limbo afterlife and proceeds to baptize. This leads to a heavenly crisis: what to do with the baptized penguins? The crisis is resolved by humanizing those penguins who then proceed to evolve and change in a saga allowing Mr. France to enlighten us with his incisive views on humanity.

This was a very influential book for me as child: an anthropological-historical-psychological view on the roots of human behaviors and societies as they have evolved through time. Imagine my joy, when much later in life, I encountered an other, significantly shorter, but no less enlightening body of work, also with Penguins as protagonists.



Our Iceberg is melting by John Kotter is a very quick read. Derived from his serious scholarship, it's a playful and memorable fable on the phenomenology of change. Take a look at the general ideas if you are not familiar with the book: http://www.kotterinternational.com/our-principles/our-iceberg-is-melting

A consequence of the ACGME's relatively new focus on patient safety and quality improvement is that I get to make all my fellows read the Kotter book starting this year. Why? Well, try to change anything in a system without some sort of mental road map, especially when you are young and think that your great idea will be welcome with open arms, since...it's a great idea!

So, we are having fun penguining and learning about the disruptiveness of change, which when you think about it for a second, should be no surprise for psychiatrists.

Till Later,

Anne