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 do better. So, I took …
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 previous post, I wrote about …
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 the book cover. I love …
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 than a human fist, spirally …
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” That’s the fallacy propagated, I …
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 hired the Doer and it …
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 DeBakey to continue his work …
DeBakey vs Cooley, The Strife of Gods on Olympus Read More »
Putting together a puzzle of life, if you started 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, border them with many pieces …
Michael DeBakey, the Surgeon who Saved His Own Life. Read More »
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 surgeon in the world. “Yes, …
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 grew up in a country …
My uncle died in Poland during the implant of his permanent pacemaker. At that time I was a medical student, and I thought I should be able to understand why did it happen. I couldn’t, and I still don’t. A few years later I came to this country and started doing the implants myself. It’s a …
In my gym, I meet the best people, and have the most interesting conversations, in the jacuzzi. It’s located in a corner of the large pool area and surrounded by a huge bay window extension. The sun is abundant, water seems tropical, and, if I would drink, I would only ask for little drinks with …