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 Charlotte, where I completed my …
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 walking on foam. And the …
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. There are always more critics …
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 of celebration. He called the …
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 …
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 writers. For me, conditio sine …
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 …
There was a time during my tenure as a Chief of Staff when quite a few of our doctors died. Attending the funerals wasn’t that uncommon, but that time seemed like more than usual. I attended most of them, not ex officio, but because they were my friends. The ceremonies differed in the religion, style, …
Mongrel. What’s an awful name for a dog. A dog not belonging to any recognizable tribe of dogs. A product of an accident. Incidental dog. Oops-dog. Dog-pariah. My dog-loving nature shakes with horror. I go to a local bakery often and frequently ask for a bagel. The one I like the most is “everything bagel.” …
Before publication I asked a few friends to read my medical mystery novel Fathers and Sons. One of them had an interesting question: why are there no sex scenes in your novel? Well, I didn’t have a good answer. But John Grisham did. During one of the conferences, he was asked the same question. Here …
There is quite a typical disclaimer printed in most of the novels. One can find it as close to the front page as possible. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, descriptions, dialogue, plot, assessment concepts, test questions and charts, settings and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. …
The history of Poland is known for massive waves of migration of her citizens. The phenomenon is easily attributed to our geographical location on the East-West political and trading routes and us being squeezed between the two, and sometimes three, four and even five, big and megalomaniac powers. During the time of relative political freedom …
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