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It is a strange thing to sit at the end of a very long, very intense road that is training to be a physician and take a look back on the winding, arduous road I took to get here. I am now endeavoring to prove I have done all of it by gathering documentation of the past 15 years of my life in excruciating detail. With just one final test to go, my neurology boards, I have become an absolute master at the ubiquitous modern knowledge measuring tool, namely I can fill bubbles on a scan sheet in completely, inside the lines with a no. 2 pencil, choosing only one answer and always guessing if I don’t know.
It is amazing how standardized tests have become the mainstay of education these days. Colleges and medical schools use them to differentiate students, nations use them to compare their system to other nations, and No Child Left Behind uses them to set minimum standards for funding our schools. We use them to prove we can drive in most states. We use them to measure IQ’s all over the internet. We use them to poll current public opinion. We use them to test marketing for the latest breakfast sandwich. Mensa and the triple nine society determine your eligibility for geniushood by these tests. Everyone can be boiled down to how they fill out these neat little bubbles. Read the rest of this entry »
What is dignity? It seems a simple question. Merriam-Webster calls it the quality of being worthy, honored, or esteemed, also seriousness of manner, appearance, or language. So dignity is something a person has, and something a person can be treated with. What gives a person dignity? Who should be treated with dignity? Read the rest of this entry »
“Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculptor his own brain“.
Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934)
Spanish Neuroscientist
Life is distinguished from the inanimate by its ability to recreate itself and hold a pattern. Throughout our lives, The very material we are made up of is recycled or regenerated. Every few weeks we completely change out the cells that compose our skin. The body is constantly in a state of regenerating itself. Even the bones are borrowing or depositing calcium throughout our lives. The machinery of our cells are constantly disposing of waste, replacing damaged portions, killing cells that are old or dysfunctional and making new ones. All this processes are kept in order by our genetic information. In essence the only thing that holds our form and keeps it from weathering away and degenerating is our DNA. This is the master set of instructions that our cells use to replace, rebuild, and develop us into the body we now have. It is the ultimate difference between the collection of elements that is us, and a rock.
However, there is much more to what we are than just the DNA blueprints. I remember a moment at the beginning of my very first year of medical school that really brought this home to me. In anatomy we had to memorize every crater, every bump, every nodule, line and crevice in every bone in the body. As we learned about these landmarks, we learned that they form not as part of some genetic program, but as a reaction to stress forces from pulling tendons and ligaments, triggering a reaction that caused the cells in that part of the bone to duplicate and reinforce the bone as needed. In other words, our actions determine the shape of our bones every bit as much as our genes.
” Be ye Therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.”
We love and adore that which is perfect in our society. Hollywood is built on the premise that the beautiful people can sell movies, models are airbrushed to perfection to sell magazines. The Olympic games is going on currently with its motto, “Bigger, stronger, faster.”
As the records fall, it seems these athletes do live up to the motto. Just look at Michael Phelps, the epitome of the bigger, stronger, faster ideal.
Michael Phelps, olympic swimmer has a very real chance at an unprecedented eight gold medals this Olympics.
Sadly, as recent scandals in Baseball and Bicycling have revealed, the push to be bigger, faster, and stronger can lead to the use of steroids, amphetamines, or other substances with very real consequences for an athletes long term health and well being. When does the drive to perform cross the line into madness. In my day, Michael Jordan was celebrated worldwide as the greatest ever, even carrying his team to victory over my beloved Utah Jazz in one game in the finals with Forty some odd point and the flu. Today, it is Tiger Woods held in much the same esteem, having just won the US open with a severe knee injury in a playoff he counts as his greatest victory ever. My question is, at what point does this single minded devotion turn into madness.
Mind, Soul, and Body 
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