Office Doors: A Day with Michael Zirulnik, Ph.D.
Assistant VP & associate professor at Creighton University Health Sciences Campus
6 A.M. >> STRETCHING LEGS + MIND
After my alarm goes off, I quickly look at my phone for any issues I need to address because our main campus is based in Omaha, and they’ve gotten a head start on the day. I do stretches and grind coffee beans for a double-shot espresso. I then head out on a 45-minute walk through the neighborhood while I listen to an audiobook. So far this year, I have completed 32 titles. I love listening to narrative and creative nonfiction writing and historical texts. Right now, I’m listening to a book on the history of medicine and inventions, and how insulin came about and the drama and story behind the discovery and production of penicillin. These are the kinds of things I get really excited about and maybe a little too nerdy.
8 A.M. >> IN SERVICE OF COMMUNITY
My workday often begins with a meeting focused on how we support, from a fundraising and government relations standpoint, the mission of the institution to educate and produce future clinicians and leaders in healthcare. Creighton came to Arizona almost 18 years ago and then formed a comprehensive health sciences campus four years ago to serve a concerning need — Arizona does not rank well in the number of healthcare practitioners per capita. The retention of residents who complete their training is approximately 70 percent and about average across the nation. Physicians typically stay where they’ve trained, which is a big win for our community.
10:30 A.M. >> COLLECTIVE VALUE
Community engagement is another focus of my work. This includes taking this wonky health sciences stuff and making it accessible to the rest of the community. It can be as simple as saying let’s have a partnership with another organization or health science educator in town and produce a viewing of a documentary, have a conference together, or collaborate on an art installation that has a tangible activity connected to it. It might happen on a First Friday, when we make space accessible where people already are. We’re contributing value to an already valuable community asset.
We continue to build partnerships not only with our partner hospitals but dozens of other community health leaders, including our partners at St. Vincent de Paul. This is where all our students start their clinical learning while serving the most underserved in our community.
1:15 P.M. >> A STATE-OF-THE-ART GOAL
My work in the arts is tangential to my day-to-day job but related to my faculty post as associate professor. I think about where there is an issue in health, health sciences or healthcare in general. I have a new art piece that is a visual and tactile representation of the lived experiences over the span of a year of a U.S. Marine Corps veteran with depression and PTSD.
Whatever the artwork is, the idea is to create. The arts, whether visual, dance, theater, music or other outlets, create this fairly egalitarian place where individuals can come together. Irrespective of whether they clean the streets, drive our light rail or spend their day in an operating room as a surgeon, they can come around an art piece and have a conversation. My ambitious goal is to help generate dialogue, reflection and contemplation, and spur new ideas and relationships within and among people who come from similar and divergent areas in life.
2 P.M. >> IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
From the university president on down, there has been a focus on whole-person healthcare. One way in which we work to teach and train this is through medical humanities and the arts. We have a beautiful Steinway piano in our lobby that was gifted to the university. It is there so our students, faculty and staff can play whenever they want because we know the arts allow different types of cognition to happen. This can include contemplation and reflection, but also reflection and development, which is a huge economic driver. Our faculty and students are innovating and we’re trying to create spaces for that to happen. This might be a new medical device that saves or improves the life of one of our family members.
Creighton’s president, Rev. Daniel Hendrickson, was serious about seeing the arts in the building. Every floor has commissioned works of art to infuse and reinforce the value of humanities and the arts. On the first floor, we have a rotating art gallery. Our most recent exhibit was “Outsider Artists from Havana.” They’re called outsider artists because they’re self-trained. These seven artists live with one or multiple severe mental illnesses. This is work they are compelled to create, and it offers a glimpse into their insights, minds and lives.
3 P.M. >> THE TEACHER BECOMES THE STUDENT
One to two days a week during the academic year I am in the classroom. This is the thing that fills my soul. It is the time when I not only teach but get to learn from our students who are worldly, smart and have great ideas. It’s also the place that keeps me grounded and reminds me why every single one of us here on campus has a job.
I am a huge advocate for education, whether formal or informal. I love not only learning personally, but seeing people grow and develop and being a part of that process.
6 P.M. >> IN LINE
When I get home, I have dinner with family and go for a walk with our dog, Kai. After catching up with friends over the phone, I’m either back on email, writing or in the garage working on an art piece.
People comment that I have done many things when looking at my various careers and roles. There’s a thread through all of it, and that is in service of others. I realized early in life how quickly life can be fleeting. I do stuff that I think is valuable or important.
To learn more, go to creighton.edu.
