A Polymath Mind

I love Aquariums

David — Thu, 27 May 2010 19:02:38 +0000

There is something about the sea that I love. I have talked to my brother who has done some dives, and I want to do scuba with him and my kids. I think it’s amazing. A friend showed me this and I totally want to go there.

Bobby McFerrin Musician Extraordinaire

David — Thu, 20 May 2010 13:31:53 +0000

Do you remember this?

" target="_blank">Bobby McFerrin always amazed me in the way he could make music. I remember jammin to OceanSpray comercials, and listening to a Pixar short with him as the whole soundtrack. Just amazing. He is an inspiring musician and humanitarian. He can sing Multiphonic sound!

He recently did work with Neuroscience and music called the Music Instinct: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/musicinstinct/

Btw, I just wanted to point out he got his start at the University of Utah… a lot of good things come from that school.

Diseases teach us in many ways

David — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:51:30 +0000

I was at the Opthomologist with my daughter for her to get an exam. Next to me was a sweet older woman who noticed my daughter, and commented on her beauty. She also noted that daughters are precious, and in the next 15 minutes, I came to learn that she had lost her daughter in the Polio epidemics in the mid-nineteenth century. She lost her husband 6 months later from cancer, and had been alone ever since. She told me her daughter had stayed for a year at Shriners of her day, was placed in an iron lunch, and that they were only aloud to see her for 1 hour every Sunday. They would bring her a gift every week and talk with her. She didn’t live more than a year.

I would never have known this by just looking at her. But I learned a lot about a condition I had just learned the day before had revolutionized what we knew about ventilating patients. It was the beginning of what we cal l ICUs, and started us into intensivist medicine(medicine for the seriously ill and in need of ventilation management and multi-organ treatments). Also, it was a time when medical philanthropy was started to blossom, as it was expensive to have an Iron lung and harder to get to them.

It was a disease that has been recorded for millenia, and that when we started to become a more sanatized society, we actually decreased the exposure for children, and made them more succesptible to the disease’s devestating effects. Hence the need for immunizations.

Poliowas a devastating disease and it killed a lot of people. It affected millions and killed thousands. If you contracted the disease, you were most likely to get better, but many had debilitation limb issues, and few lost the ability to breath or move. Amazing how such a small thing could cause so much change-societal and personal.

Seeing Impostors: When Loved Ones Suddenly Aren’t -NPR Story

David — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:46:29 +0000

Two different patients. Two different stories. But a shared delusion. Each is convinced that someone they love dearly is not that person, but an impostor. A curious disorder known as Capgras delusion involves the distinct feeling that the people around you have been replaced.

NPR did story on this delusion disorder. One of the experts they interviews is an interesting neuroscientist who spoke at a TED conference about interesting brain paradoxes, his name is Dr. Ramachandran. Really this story came from Radio Lab, a blog/radio/podcast pair of men who speak on insteresting subjects. All in all, I was impressed with this rare, rare, delusion that can effect people.

As is mentioned in the piece, Capgras delusion, is named after a French psychiatrist. He gave the first case report on a woman who had this issue.

Imagine you look at someone, and you see that they look like someone you know and you know what their name is, and you know a history with this face, but there is no emotional backing to your image. So, you don’t think it’s them because it doesn’t “feel” like them! If they walked out of the room and called you, you’d know them and tell them someone stole their body and impersonated them. Interesting and sad.

Art and Hunger

David — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 23:14:56 +0000

I heard this story on NPR about a man named Michael Nye, who did an art collection based on Hunger. It was amazing to hear the stories that people who experienced real hunger went through, and then when I got home, I was able to view the images that went with them. He would spend several days with his subjects, interviewing and taking photographs, then he’d make a small short audio clip and share an image that went with it. It was very touching.

A photograph by Michael Nye, as part of his collection on hunger, click to visit the site with her story.

It was very moving to hear the stories of these people, and amazing how he used photography and journalism to present it. He is a lawyer by trade.

I highly recommend looking at his web exhibits.
About Hunger

100 Year Old Practicing Doctor

David — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 03:23:09 +0000

I am impressed. I hope to still be practicing medicine at 100…probably not catching babies though.

A poem for Match

David — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 02:40:41 +0000

Twas the night before match and all through the land
Every student was stirring–in fear of fates hand

All the rank lists were sent with the greatest of care
In hopes that Doc So-and-so would grant their dear prayer

For in just a few hours, at high noon precicely
The server would jam as we all log on nicely

Some with a scream and others with tears
Will see where they’re heading for the next couple years

Oh Match don’t you fail me, please find me a place
One with the training you just can’t replace

As I fall asleep tongight–if I can sleep at all
I think of where I might be living this fall

No matter the locàl, no matter the city
I be living inside until I’m pasty white pretty

For interns are abused as much as they can be
Living in hospitals without the sun friendly

Noon will come soon, our first choices in sight
Merry Match day to all, and to all a good night

David and Julie Keith

The Trancendentalists

David — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:22:42 +0000

“People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was in high school, I was fascinated by the writers known as the transendentalists. To me to be a “writing movement” with ideas that formed an actually historical blip was amazing and I grew to enjoy RA Emmerson’s work. He ennoyed education as well as has an interesting, and I think unique view of the world and religion. I think it would have been interesting to talk with him for an evening. He had many thoughts directed at what makes a person a better person, as well as insights such as this one about a person’s character. I think he was on the mark here.

From: Doctoring: the Nature of Primary Care Medicine

David — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:51:36 +0000

“A common error in thinking about primary care is to see it as entry-level medicine…and, because of this, rudimentary medicine — for mostly (say) the common cold and imaginary illnesses. This is a false notion. Everyone knows, however, that knowing when you don’t know require sophisticated knowledge…From the perspective of training physicians and the knowledge bases required for adequate performance, the higher we go on the scale of a specialist training, the less complex medical problems become.” Eric J. Cassell, MD

Man I love that quote! Very well put!

A great new female vocalist

David — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:42:17 +0000

I heard this on the itunes sampler, and I thought it was really good. It’s easy to listen to and very smooth.