Making a Difference in our Patients' Lives

At a seminar, our staff heard a story told by futurist Joel Barker that inspired its to use the starfish as our logo. It symbolizes our desire to "make a difference in each of our patient's lives

Once upon a time there was a wise poet and writer by the name of Loren Isle who made a habit of walking along the ocean before he began to write. One day as he was walking along the shore, he noticed a human figure in the distance moving like a dancer As he got closer he saw that the young man wasn't dancing but instead was reaching down to the shore, picking up something and very gently throwing it back into the ocean.

He called out to the young man "Good Morning. What are you doing?" The young man paused, looked up and replied. "Throwing starfish into the ocean. The sun is up and the tide is out and if I don't throw them in, they'll die." "But young man, don't you realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it? You can't possibly make a difference." The young man listened politely, then bent down and picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking wares. "Made a difference for that one."

His response surprised the man who didn't know how to reply.
So instead he turned away and walked back to his cottage to begin his writing. All day long as lie wrote, the image of that voting man haunted him. He tried to ignore it but the vision persisted.

Finally, late in the afternoon he realized that he the scientist and he the poet, had missed the essential nature of the young man's action. Because he realized that what the young man was doing was choosing not to be an observer in the universe and watch it pass by, but was choosing to be an actor in the universe and make a difference. That night he went to bed troubled. When morning came he awoke knowing that he had to do something. So he got up, put on his clothes, went to the beach and found the young man and with him he spent the rest of the morning throwing starfish into the ocean.