Ruminations of an Immediate Past President

Tonight was my first meeting of the Buffalo Surgical Society as the immediate Past President. I sat at the table with the current President and Secretary and two other past Presidents. The needs of the organization continue to be very challenging. The pleasure I felt at knowing that I had done a good job as President for the past year was significant. What gripped me most was the sense of history which seemed so strong as I reminisced with Dr. Leonard Berman about the Society's great traditions. The pre-dinner "cocktail" hour was most interesting as there were no cocktails just wine, beer, and soda. Clearly a reflection of the ever changing landscape of rising costs and diets. The presentation by Dr. Vasquez was very good as it represents "a good model' as so eloquently described by Dr. Dayton, the Department Chairman. However, from the salad on thru the dessert, the conversation turned to politics. The upcoming election seems uppermost on everyone's mind, not so much the election itself as what it is coming to represent as a "sign of the times". Everyone is worried and not about the same things. There seems to be more than enough worries for each person to have his own and then some. There was one unanimous feeling = everyone hates the War in Iraq. After that, the diversity begins. One person is overwhelmed by the deficit run up by Bush's administration. He fears for his children and grand-children as he knows based on his children's current employments that they will never do as well as he has done financially. More about this meeting later. JTE.

Toxic Success and the Mind of a Surgeon

Well folks, today I have decided to discuss a journal article of the listed title. It is from the August 2004 Archives of Surgery. The author is Paul Pearsall, Ph.D. It is an invited lecture from the 75th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Coast Surgical Association. Pearsall lists two of his own books in the references for the article. The guy is a real self-promoter. Just check out his website paulpearsall.com. He has no fear of talking about something with which he is relatively unfamiliar = his own quote from the article "My admittedly limited number of interviews of surgeons..." He clearly ascribes to the theory of when you have no data try to feed the suckers baloney. I suspect the real problem with Pearsall is that he is infatuated maybe even addicted with being a "peddler" and what he peddles is pablum. I also suspect he has "Dr. Phil envy". I chalk this up to being just another pop psychology piece. The sad part is that it found its way into a peer reviewed surgical journal. Hope others who happen to have read this article will comment; however, if you have not read it don't waste your time doing so. JTE.

It is comments like this found in a recent comment to a post on this blog that keep me excited about continuing with the effort.

"wow, that's pretty interesting.I'm actually a medical student, and been considering to do neurosurgery in life later, so I was quite amused and glad to bump into this blog. Giving me -you can say- another side of the life of a surgeon/doctor.Wish there were more blogs like this around"

I wish there were more people willing to add to this blog! I have offered the possibilty of co-authorship to others, but am still waitng for any takers.
JTE

Tie Experiment
Well folks - here is the description of my tie experiment.
What tie experiment you say?
The Christmas tie experiment!
Hypothesis = people will notice Christmas ties worn in August and September and make outrageous comments.
Materials and Methods - for 5 consecutive days (August 30 - September 3) a different Christmas tie was worn to work, shopping, restaurants, etc.
Estimated number of persons viewing a grown man wearing a Christmas tie in August/September = 1000+
Results - exactly one person recognized that it was a Christmas tie.
Several people stared at the tie but did not comment.
Possible explanation - their brains refused to process the concept of a Christmas tie in the Summer!!
Null hypothesis just plain out the window.
No statistics needed!!!!
So, what an interesting comment on the seasonal control over brain processing.
JTE.

Funny Clinic Story. As many know, clinics in large urban teaching hospitals are filled with interesting stories. My weekly surgery clinic is on Tuesday. Here is a story from yesterday. One of my assigned medical students went in to do a work up on a new patient with a complaint of a hernia. I reviewed the history and physical with the medical student and she reported that as part of the past history the patient reported being "bipolar". I reviewed the outpatient chart and then checked the EMR. There was no previous documentation of this disorder. So I went in to see the patient with the student. I said to the patient, your student doctor has reported that you have given a history of being bipolar. Could you tell us where the diagnosis was made? The patient very matter of factly replied. "Oh, my mother is bipolar and I took her medicine and felt a lot better. So. I am bipolar just like my mother!" As Dan rather says - "we don't make this stuff up folks!" JTE.