Over the past year, I have been getting a lot of invites to speak or interviews from students.
All invitations have become virtual and I realize a lot of students are not properly trained in proper email etiquette.
Here are some basic rules to live by:
1/ Learn how to write a business letter. There's tons of examples online.
Be clear about the intent of the letter, and take the perspective of the recipient. What do you want the recipient to do? I've gotten emails where the invitation was not clear of what was expected of me.
2/ Check for typos and make sure you get the ff details right:
- name (triple check this every time)
- dates on the letter (I've gotten emails where the interview request date has passed but the email was sent after the date... so am I just a backup?)
3/ Give your invitees >2 weeks grace period. Please don't be demanding of anyone's time, especially when what you are asking from them is essentially a favor - outside of their regular work responsibilities and the work is not paid. Preparing for a talk takes A LOT of time.
4/ When a speaker declines, they are not expected to provide a reason. Please don't demand for one.
I've gotten those kinds of replies. I send a refusal as soon as I can so that you can find another speaker, not to allow you to convince me to change my decision.
5/ Please make sure to do research on your invitee's background.
I've gotten requests on the general area of public health, even those well outside of what I am familiar with. If you Google my name and search through my tweets, you will know what I can actually speak about.
6/ Sometimes when students make any of these mistakes, I reply back to correct their mistake, because as a teacher I want to make sure to make a teaching moment out of it. But lately, I don't have the bandwidth to correct each one so you will just see me not reply anymore.
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It's going to be difficult to determine whether the surge we are seeing in cases is driven by a variant (whether it's B.1.1.7, B.1.351, P.3, or P.1) but there are some key differences in the country's surveillance capacity between the July/Aug surge and the one happening now
1/ The narrative last July/Aug was that the government was struggling to expand laboratory capacity. Mayors and senators were posturing how they were ready with their labs but DOH regulatory bodies were taking forever to inspect and approve. Now, labs have been underutilized.
2/ Laboratory tests have been hovering around 20-30k daily, but I can easily imagine laboratories ramping up to surge capacity and doing 50k tests daily. It's going to be a question of affordability, as nat'l gov't gave up on enforcing the free testing policy of PhilHealth.
1/ One of the most surprising provisions in the Universal Health Care Act passed last year was a mandatory increase of PhilHealth contributions among the formally employed. It has always been unpopular to raise premiums, so I was surprised how Congress got away w/ the 6-year hike
2/ There's actually no mechanism in the law to delay the increases in premiums, just a guarantee from PhilHealth that every year, there will be increases in benefits. That may mean more health interventions covered, or increases in financial coverage of existing benefits.
3/ One of the guarantees is that PhilHealth should strengthen the implementation of zero co-payments for basic and ward accommodation (No Balance Billing), and set fixed co-payments for everything else. PhilHealth released a Circular earlier this week on this framework.