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? Long-term? When you read the […]
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” That’s the fallacy propagated, I […]
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 hired the Doer, and it […]
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 DeBakey to continue his work […]
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, border them with many pieces […]
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 surgeon in the world. “Yes, […]
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 to say, it’s about the […]
Aging
Recently I’ve attended our fiftieth anniversary of graduation from Warsaw Medical University. Fifty years! Fifty years? At that time I never thought I’ll live that long. Fifty years ago we all gathered in the same city, received navy-blue booklets with our pictures in them, and then dispersed all over the world. After life-long careers, we […]
Cardiac Pacemakers
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 […]
