Brooklyn Transplant

Medical Trivia #1: Sutton’s Law

There are many “laws” in science reflecting past observations and scientific proofs that have been shown to be either completely true or at least highly reliable. Many of these laws bear someone’s name. Some required understanding of complex scientific principles… Continue Reading →

A Tale of Two Meetings; the microscope meets the pen

In one month, March 2016, I attended two seemingly widely disparate meetings. The 105thth annual meeting of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP) was held at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, March 12-18. The 16thth… Continue Reading →

May 13, 2016 3

Easter Memories

The New York Times crossword puzzle for Wednesday May 20, 2015 included, as a clue for 23 across: Holiday not widely observed by Quakers. The answer was: Easter. I did not know that about Quakers but I was reminded of… Continue Reading →

March 24, 2016 9

Doctors who write; It all began with Ctesius of Cnidus

A question I am often asked about my first novel, A Little Piece of Me, is: why did you write it? This is usually followed by: how long did it take? I also get asked if it is based on something… Continue Reading →

May 27, 2015 3

How NOT to learn about grand opera and other tales …

1939 was quite a year in the history of the world. World War II began when Germany attacked Poland. The Spanish Civil War ended as Franco conquered Madrid. Albert Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt urging him to build an atomic… Continue Reading →

December 31, 2014 16

Trepanation – (or releasing demons)

Trepanation, or trephining, may well represent the earliest wound inflicted by one human being on another for the purpose of healing and can be considered the beginning of the practice of surgery and the earliest tangible evidence of medical… Continue Reading →

October 21, 2014 5

THE Dodgers, once and forever

Many times, in the years after my 1984 move to Los Angeles from New York, colleagues would invite me to go with them to Dodger Stadium in Chavez Ravine to see the Los Angeles Dodgers play. I always politely… Continue Reading →

October 5, 2014 12

Medicine, molecules and music: Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) – surgeon, scientist, composer, educator, women’s rights advocate, Broadway award winner

A 1951 stamp from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (CCCP in Russian, USSR in English) bears the images of five great Russian composers: Mikhail Glinka (top left), Peter Ilyitch Tchaikowsky (top right), Modest Moussorgsky (bottom left), Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakoff (bottom… Continue Reading →

September 26, 2014 8

Anatomy and the bears

My aunt Goldie used to subscribe to the Reader’s Digest and I would look forward to reading it when we visited her house. I didn’t do more than glance at most of the articles, concentrating on just a few… Continue Reading →

August 16, 2014 4

Heartless hospitals – part 1

The first record of something that we might call a hospital, a specific place to bring sick people, may be in Ceylon in the Fifth Century. The Babylonian Talmud of more than three thousand years ago devotes considerable discussion… Continue Reading →

August 16, 2014 1