Blogs

What do I expect in 2025

Ever since 2020 I started writing about the past year, and about what do I expect in the new one, there was always a pattern. 2020 was a terrible year. We know, we suffered a lot. We probably still don’t know, and won’t know about the rest. But despite the

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Spirituality, The Other Side Of The Human Life

Peter Attia’s Outlive is for me a personal manual to the human body. But there is another aspect of being alive. And is far more fascinating. I got interested in Wayne Dyer’s writings in the 90′, in the second trimester of my life. I had a busy cardiac surgical practice,

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Woman relaxing with alcohol

Fight with the Devil, Murano Family Curse

Alcohol drinking in the family is a curse. Alcohol drinking in three generation leads to damnation. Dr. Jack Murano tries to prevent his son, Mike, from becoming a third-generation alcoholic. Starting from a seemingly innocent sip of champagne drank from an ice hockey trophy, through peer pressure during the high

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The Best Way to Ruin Father-Daughter Relationship

Dr. Jack Murano waited for that day ever since Kate was a little girl. In his mind, he rehearsed the wedding ceremony many times. He visualized the sequence of him walking her down the aisle, handing her to a future husband, and dancing the father-daughter dance. Long before the wedding,

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The Exchange, a Novel by John Grisham

Right after my retirement, I decided to start writing. I just graduated from my life’s second trimester, and started my third. Grisham was always my inspiration. One of a few. Throughout my life I gathered a lot of material, numerous stories, excellent stories. I was familiar with Grisham’s career, and

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Female bare feet standing with a scales.

How to measure your physical progress in the 80s

If you can’t measure, you can’t manage People still argue, who said it If you have a goal, and commit a significant portion of your energy and time to getting healthy, you have to see the results of your efforts. You have to be able to measure them. And the

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senior athletes synchronous exercising on step platforms at gym

How to keep staying vertical in your 80s

In mens sana corpore sano W zdrowym ciele zdrowy duch A healthy mind in a healthy body The Romans knew. Peter Attia calls it the Centenarian Decathlon. I call it long-term planning and persistence. You have to know where to go and how to get there. That’s what I want

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Elon Musk; a Biography by Walter Isaacson

For two years, the accomplished biographer shadowed Elon Musk. He was invited to his many personal and business meetings. Isaacson had no restrictions with the access to the billionaire. No limits to the materials he wanted to see and review. Musk didn’t ask to see the manuscript before its publication.

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Little boy with his grandfather reading a book in a field at summer

Emotional Goals to Be Fit at 80

Here are my emotional goals: *By that age, I have to know my strengths and my weaknesses. *I have to be able to listen when the others want just that. *I have to be able to take, not to shift the blame. *I need to be strong in my difficult

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Talking with friend

The goals for fitness at 80

When I was 40, my financial advisor designed our investment and estate plan until the age of 90. It’s ridiculous, I thought. At that time, I worried about the next 10 years. But now I know how thoughtful he was. When we are younger, we don’t think of our health

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Cropped image of a male hiker climbing mountains

How to Be Fit at 80

When I think of a fit person at 80, I don’t see a muscular old man with a perfect white beard, showing his biceps and six-pack, boasting 5 percent body fat. No, these people are often gym rats, using all the pharmacological help to achieve the look, still for many

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Beautiful picture of the landscape seen through the rearview mirror

What if this is all it is? Life in the Rearview Mirror

Let’s imagine… Imagine you’re at the end of your life. You’re laying on the bed and can’t move. It’s dark, and there’s no one around. It’s quiet and chilly, and you are scared. You know you’re dying. You know it’s over, and you look back on your life. There were

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A Look Back into 2023 and My Writing Plans for 2024

It had been a tumultuous and an eventful year. As I had promised, Pals Forever was published on Father’s Day. The Resurrections – on Christmas. My piece of real estate on the internet, witoldniesluchowski.com, saw construction of the great website built by liz@liztheresa.com and company. Beautiful and functional, the new

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And Now a Christmas Present for Me

I’ve been working hard on a Christmas present for my readers. The Resurrections is just about to be launched. But before… Here is a Christmas present for me. A new, completely redesigned website. The address is the same https://witoldniesluchowski.com/ My new home. Thanks to hard work by Liz liz@liztheresa.com, and

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My New World Symphony in ‘C’

Just something came to my mind. When I arrived to this country, I first lived in Charlotte, in North Carolina. To start my surgical internship and residency, I traveled to Cincinnati. From there I moved to Columbia, which is in South Carolina. Next for me was to go back to

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The Resurrections: Man and His Dog

As promised, I have a big announcement to make. The second part of my trilogy following the Murano family saga is coming. It will be ready for Christmas. In the first part, Pals Forever, Dr. Murano created a perfect family. Or so he thought. The second part, The Resurrections, sees

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Healthcare: Feeding of The Hungry Giant

The complexity of our health care delivery system is at the root of the problem. The chain of care starts with a patient, as it should. It ends with the government devising the policies and providing the funding for the delivery of medical services. Or maybe it’s the other way

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Why Doctors’ Suicide Rate Is So High

It all starts with the length and the intensity of the medical training. After college, there are years of training in the primary specialty, and more if one wants to subspecialize. In my case, there were 5 years of general surgery, and 2 years of cardiovascular subspecialty. All that after

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End of Summer Gift for My Readers

There are plenty of reasons to celebrate. I’m sitting on my porch looking at the greenery outside. The sun is coming up, and I can hear the world around me slowly waking up. It’s so quiet, I can hear my thoughts. And I like it that way. My laptop is

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Country at the Crossroads in Europe

The end of the first millennium saw the developing of conditions for future wars in Europe. Christianity slowly kept expanding, and Poland, still a pagan country, didn’t want to accept the new order from the Holy Roman Empire, our powerful Western neighbor. Instead, we asked to be baptized directly by

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Fighting the Devil

Alcohol drinking in the family is a curse. Alcohol drinking in three generations leads to damnation. Dr. Jack Murano tries to prevent his son, Mike, from becoming a third-generation alcoholic. Starting from a seemingly innocent sip of champagne drank from an ice hockey trophy, through peer pressure during the high

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First book reviews are coming

Pals Forever came out two months ago, and I am lucky enough to have already first book reviews. Granted, they are all from the friends and family, but that’s only the beginning as my story travels around the world. Nevertheless, I am prepared for the good, the bad, and the

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Readers Appreciation Party, The Pictorial

This post is a followup on the one published last week. My daughter Megan Jurik took the images, Bonnie and I selected and embedded them. I promised to meet again for the celebration of the second book in the Murano family saga. The Resurrections, The Man and His Dog will

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Readers Appreciation Party Was a Big Success

Pals Forever is the first book in my trilogy about the life of Dr. Murano. First big chapter in the Murano family saga. And it deserved a proper send out into the real world of readers. I thought we’ve accomplished our goal last Friday. I named the book launch event

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We are launching Murano Family Saga

The author and the artist introduce Pals Forever to Briar Chapel Community The time to present our work has come. Kathy Flood designed the cover. She used her family members as models. I used my life experiences in the story. We are both neighbors. Talking about a community project! We

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Gösta Iwasiuk, M.D. a friend and a Renaissance Man

We had been born a few months apart, a few hundred kilometers from each other. We both have Slavic surnames. Both became surgeons. We had immigrated to the United States, and lived almost all our professional lives in Ventura County, just a few miles from each other. We even worked

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Is There Heaven for Dogs?

I had it in my archives for a long time. Now is the proper time to post it. Our 14-year-old dog Abbey died last month. The day after she passed away, my 4-year-old daughter Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey. She asked if we could

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‘Genius on the Edge’, by Gerald Imber, M.D.

I wrote about Dr. William Halsted’s life achievements, and about his vices, in the post https://witoldniesluchowski.com/how-did-a-cocaine-addict-change-surgery-in-america/. The book, Genius on the Edge, is, however, about a different aspect of his life story. It’s about how, out of nowhere, there appeared in Baltimore a medical excellence center. A world-class institution, and

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Best Songs for Sons and Daughters on Father’s Day

We have two sons and twin daughters. In our family, the Father’s Day is usually quite eventful, and I pride myself on being important to them. Recently, I realized how many songs there are recognizing the unique bond between the parents and their children. The sacred bond. I have known

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The First Book in the Muranos Trilogy Saga.

Start your journey this Father’s Day. This was my post from January this year. https://bit.ly/3MBgnjM Here is the follow-up. And the progress report. My writing in 2023 is taking shape. You may or may not know that I took all my already published books off the market. The Pandemics helped

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How Did a Cocaine Addict Change Surgery in America

The year was 1881 and a woman bled after childbirth. The family contacted a young, 29-year-old surgeon. After deliberations, he drew blood from his own vein and transfused it to the patient. The patient recovered. German scientist Karl Landsteiner, with the help of a Polish serologist Ludwik Hirszfelt, discovered and

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Does a Stressful Job Shorten Your Life?

“It’s not stress that kills us, it’s our reaction to it.”―Hans Selye, Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist, author of “The Stress of Life” Let’s see. Michael DeBakey died 2 months short of 100,Denton Cooley was 96,Francis Robicsek – 94,Domingo Liotta – 97,Viking Björk – 90,Alan Carpentier, alive at 89,Thomas Fogarty, alive at 88,Dwight

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Drama in the Operating Theater now Available in Paperback

“There’s nothing like a printed book; the weight, the woody scent, the feel, the look.”― E.A. Bucchianeri There comes a next mini-step in publishing the Murano family saga. The paperback is available on Amazon. Here’s the link to the paperback. And here –– to the e-book. Enjoy. Next is the

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What’s New for Me in 2023?

These were my thoughts entering 2022: https://bit.ly/3Q50YtD My optimism was clearly justified. There was one significant personal loss in our family. But also 2022 brought exciting changes to my writing. Let me share these with you. I felt my stories were not ready for prime time. And that I could

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If You Can’t Find Your Genre, Create One.

MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Oh, really? So when I say: Nicole bring me my slippers and fetch my nightcap,” is that prose? PHILOSOPHY MASTER: Most clearly.MONSIEUR JOURDAIN: Well, what do you know about that! These forty years now I’ve been speaking in prose without knowing it!—Molière, The Bourgeois Gentleman, 1670 In the

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How to Find Readers for Your Story.

You have to know who your readers are, they say. Then you have to find out how to get to them, they say. Have a picture of your ideal target in your mind, and write for that person. Then write to your reader’s Avatar. It doesn’t work this way for

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The Polish Fight for Freedom

On this day, 83 years ago, a dark cloud descended on Poland. On September 1, 1939, the German hordes invaded our country from the West. Seventeen days later, the Russians completed the job, and marched from the East. Once again, Poland disappeared from the maps of Europe. But, as we

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Is Loneliness Good? Would You Rather Party or Pray?

Our family is blessed. Bonnie’s parents just celebrated their 71st wedding anniversary. What a joy! Or is it? They are still fortunate to be together and stay relatively healthy. And to have a devoted family. But it’s fascinating to think about how the old age changes your social life. I

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What My Father’s Shaving Lessons Taught Me About Life

Be patient, avoid mediocrity, and pay attention to details. It was his sacrosanct daily morning routine. After getting up, before putting on his suit and leaving for work, and before breakfast was served, my father took the ownership of our kitchen table. We didn’t have hot water in our skimpy

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Drama in the Operating Theater

This is the first book after redesigning my writing career. I am almost ready to hit this ‘Publish’ button, but not yet. Before doing it, I want to let my readers know that the book is coming, create some buzz, and then send the story to the world. First, here’s

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My Father and Growing up in a Communist Poland

My father was an honorable and a decent man. I still remember the first advice he gave me. “Don’t lie,” he said. “It’s so much easier to live your life when you don’t have to remember each version of the story you told different people.” He was honest to a

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Laptop with human brain scan on desk

Miracle of the Human Brain

A human brain is the most complicated object in the Universe. If we compare the heart to a pump, skeleton to framing, digestive tract to a chemical factory, a human brain is a sophisticated computer. It’s so advanced, we don’t know how does it work. We don’t even know how

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Miracle of the Beating Human Heart

I remember how I felt seeing an exposed human heart for the first time. I was assisting my mentor with the coronary bypass surgery. After he split the breastbone, and incised the thick layer of the sack enveloping the heart, I saw a slowly contracting glob of muscle. No bigger

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How I Started My Writing Adventure

Let me tell you a story. Just imagine… Imagine yourself walking in an upscale suburban neighborhood. It’s a late evening. Through the bay window, you can see a well-lit but otherwise darkly furnished room. It looks like an old English library. There is a late-middle-age man sitting in a partially

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My Writing in the New Year 2022

Happy 2022 to all. Despite all the surrounding defeatism, I greet 2022 with an unwavering optimism. At my age, I greatly appreciate each of them, and I’m ready to enjoy every one to the fullest. Each one is like a new baby––from the time it comes, you’re convinced it’s going

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Mentors or How to Get Further in Life

Early morning on any beach is a magic time. But the Caribbean beaches are special. The best I’ve ever seen are in the Turks and Caicos. Their sand is as white as snow. Fine Carrara marble powder. Not even a speckle of dirt. It is so fine, you feel like

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Concept of problems with memory, amnesia disease

Where Is The Memory Stored?

In my previous post, I mentioned Paulo Coelho in By the River I Sat Down and Wept. The story was read by some as borrowed from the Hundredth monkey effect, originally described in the 1950s, and developed into a theory by Lyall Watson in the 1970s. It made a point

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By the River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept

By Paulo Coelho I read this passage some years ago. But recently, it brought to me an entirely different meaning. I am learning about the function of the human brain, and the phenomenon of memory fascinates me. Please read, and I will return to my crazy idea in the next

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All About Masks

I put my first mask on some sixty years ago. In my Medical School during cadaver dissection in anatomy class, the stench was difficult to tolerate. The mask was a status symbol then, and put me in the circle of health professionals. Later, during long open-heart surgery cases, it seemed

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Sneak Preview of My New book, “Pals Forever”

How do you raise the son, when your father is in prison for murder? Do you even want to have a son? Crime is committed in the operating room, and they blame the surgeon for it. Fatherhood is the most challenging job, and also the most rewarding. Watercolor by Kathy

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Life Lessons

The pessimist complains of the wind; The optimist expects it to change; The realist adjusts the sails. William Arthur Ward

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It’s not the critic who counts

I see this everywhere. The commentators. Political, economic, sports, social, scientific. They all make a living from someone else’s ideas, work and sweat. Someone else’s years of work, preparations, and risk-taking. Austerities. And then exposing his or her creations to the world. The commentators can make or break your career.

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How to become a writer

The first condition to become a writer is to have something to say. It reminds me of the anecdote from the stormy life of Napoleon. Each time the Frenchman conquered the town, he expected a 21-gun salute. Once the expectation was not met, and the town was silent. No sounds

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How to Practice Gratitude. Writing Autumn fall gratitude journal. Open paper notebook pages with

My Gratitude

I’m writing this a few hours into 2021. And what a year it was. Turmoil. Conflicts. I don’t remember such a consequential year during my lifetime. The monumental presidential election. A huge dynamic in national and world economy and politics. Unprecedented deception in the media. Everything topped by a monstrous

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•morning reader•

Tradycje. Epilog dla czytelników polskich

Dla moich polskich czytelników. Koncert w Piwnicy pod Baranami. A teraz sam autor, Jan Pietrzak. Tekst oryginalny. Jest takie miejsce u zbiegu dróg, Gdzie się spotyka z zachodem wschód… Nasz pępek świata, Nasz biedny raj… Jest takie miejsce, Taki kraj. Nad pastwiskami ciągnący dym, Wierzby jak mary, w welonach mgły…

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Traditions

Teaching kids how to cook mother’s favorite dishes. Showing them the places your ancestors are from. Telling stories about how parents met and what they’ve done before you’ve arrived. Traditions. Most of the kids don’t think about what’d happened before they were born. And if they do––it happens late in

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Human Brain Cutout Paper

We know very little about our brains.

The human brain is a marvelous creation. The function of our brains fascinates me. But the more I study, the longer I live, fuller I realize how little we know. And this pertains not only to us, but even more to the professionals. How is the memory stored? Short-term memory?

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Nothing is Random

We look at the sky at night and see chaos. We drive on 405 through Los Angeles during the rush hours and see disarray. We walk into the forest, look at the trees and see discoordinated growth around a seemingly unregulated river. Scientists study the environment, trying to find out

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Evolution of a writer

Progression (or regression?) of a writer One starts as a writer. Then becomes a teacher. The next step is to be an editor. In the final stage you become a critic.

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A Mentor

A mentor is a spirit with many faces. Find the one, who builds you up. Avoid the one who tears you down. The first type sees only problems. The second sees potential.

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Who is Critic

“A critic is someone who enters the battlefield after the war is over and shoots the wounded.” Murray Kempton. American journalist

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A Misleading, Unnecessary Disclaimer

A disclaimer, frequently found at the beginning of many works of fiction, always puzzled me. “Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental”

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Why the Poles Fight, part 4

They were the largest group of the people participating in the Warsaw Uprising. And the only one not involved in the decision to rise. Before the war, Warsaw had a population of 1,300,000, and the city was the seventh largest of Europe. In March 1945, after the Germans evacuated, only

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Why the Poles Fight, part 3

They were young, desperate, and had seen enough of German savagery. They wanted to be free and wanted to avenge the unspeakable brutality of the invaders. They knew they could die, but also knew there are worse things than death. But the youths of Warsaw weren’t the only players in

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Why the Poles Fight, part 2.

The Museum of Warsaw Uprising is chilling evidence of the atrocity of dying Nazi experiment. Being beaten on both fronts, the Germans unloaded their rage on the essentially defenseless population of the Polish capital. Their destruction of Warsaw was symbolic and reminds me of the epic razing of Carthage by

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Why the Poles Fight

“Why in the world did you fight the Germans in the Warsaw Uprising?” A good friend of mine shook his head. There was more than a question in his demeanor. I sensed a tone of disapproval. “Were you out of your mind?” He was Hungarian and left his native country

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A Full Spectrum of Surgeons: from Brainiac to Doer

In my last three posts, I wrote about the two gods in American surgery. Cooley and DeBakey. Two personalities who achieved the pinnacle, still being on the opposite ends of the surgical universe. One was a thinker, a planner, and had vision. The other one was, let’s-operate-and-see-what-happens, man. The Brainiac

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DeBakey vs Cooley, The Strife of Gods on Olympus

Ostensibly, it was all about the first implantation of an artificial heart. Argentinian surgeon, Domingo Liotta, started to work on the project at the University of Córdoba. And he was not even the first one in the history of medicine. Liotta, after his initial studies were published, was asked by

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Michael DeBakey, the Surgeon who Saved His Own Life.

Putting together a puzzle of life, if you start with a piece of an enormous drive to excellence, add a piece of self-discipline, follow it with another piece of resilience, interpose these with a part of impeccable work habits, find a piece of attention to details and intolerance of error,

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Denton A. Cooley, Bigger than Texas

Modify, simplify, apply Denton A. Cooley, motto of The Texas Heart Institute. A story had circulated about Denton Cooley, the famous Houston-based surgeon and innovator, an exceptionally gifted man. While testifying in court, Dr. Cooley was asked by the opposing attorney if he considered himself to be the best heart

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How We Care. The Epilogue.

The family care doesn’t start at birth. And doesn’t finish at death. Arthur Kleinman, from memory, modified. At a certain age, each of us suddenly finds out we had ancestors. I got interested in my heritage when I realized that the name of the village, where my father was born,

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How We Care. My Mother.

“A mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child.” Nicole Helget, Stillwater When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, I was 6 months old. We lived in the center of the city, where the fighting was most brutal. One day, the group of insurgents brought us two infants whose mothers

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How We Care. My Father.

When a father helps his son, they both laugh. When a son helps his father, they both cry. Yiddish proverb. One of the most consequential decisions of my life was to bring my parents from Poland to the United States. While they were getting older, I realized my parents’ future

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Francis Robicsek, the Renaissance Man.

He was Hungarian. His name, however, like the name of the city he was born, Miskolc, was Slavic. He came from the part of Eastern Europe which for a long time was dominated culturally and politically by the Austrians, and the borders between the nations were in constant flux. He

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Getting Older

Getting older is raising from the ground up, seeing less details, but having better overview. When up, one suddenly realizes he’s at peace. High in space, there’s no noise, quiet and the air is cleaner. You see only important things.

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The Plague

The choice seemed perfect. I read James Michener’s Hawaii while on vacations on Kauai and his Poland––knowing history of this country well. Reading Camus’ masterpiece now, when coronavirus is raging, lets me the current events with a different acuity. I don’t plan to relate the story in more detail. Enough

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Missing jigsaw puzzle pieces. Business concept.

A Word About Puzzles

Recently a friend of mine wrote his first blog. https://puzzlingdotblog.wordpress.com/ We started our conversations in jacuzzi in our fitness club. They were as quirky as unusual was our meeting place. The noise in hot tub limits parts of conversations. But you know from the beginning what some people are born

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Alan Heathcock’s 27 Tenets of writing fiction

This post was written on a Twitter request by people looking for this excellent writing advice given by an American fiction writer Alan Heathcock. It is re-posted as-is, preserving the original formatting and syntax. Posted on the request on Twitter by Ann Murphy,@Gaiamethod

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Writer’s life

It would be a mistake to treat any novel as autobiography. Rather, it’s an author’s insights into life’s secret places. Robert McKee.

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