Author: Lawrence Hurwitz, MD

Posted on

Tree Surgeon

The second hand swept past twelve midnight on the operating room clock as the retractor dug into the palm of my hand and my biceps lactate level soared. “Hmm, you’re choosing Internal medicine?”, intoned Dr. G, as he directed the surgical resident to place catgut sutures into a human gut that was defiled by a stab wound in the heat of a gang altercation in East Los Angeles in 1977.  I pulled on the retractor as Dr. G. sermoned his soliloquy on the superiority of surgical practice. “Who is going to save the patient with appendicitis or peritonitis from certain death? The surgeon!”, he emphatically answered. 

Morning arrived quickly and surgical rounds began as a retinue of visiting professors, fellows, residents, interns, social workers, case workers, physical and occupational therapists and finally third year medical students filed in behind Dr. G. In my sleep deprived mind, I saw his surgical cap as a tri-cornered hat, his pocketed stethoscope as a sword and his entry through the door of the large L.A. County Hospital ward as passing under a faux Arc de Triomphe after his conquests at Austerlitz. Moments later, he transmogrified into a fusion Perry Mason and Clarence Darrow, as he interrogated a profusely sweating surgical resident who had the misfortune of a post cholecystectomy wound infection.

Many decades later, playing “where are they now?,” I did the perspicacious detective work of finding out what accolades Dr. G. had received in the 21st century.  In other words, I had googled his name. Up came the answer: He had retired to a South Pacific Island to manage a greenhouse and take care of plants and trees on the island. He had become a plant and tree doctor! The head of Los Angeles County Trauma Response who had mended miles of injured intestines, cauterized thousands of bleeding blood vessels, and drained an ocean of abscesses had become a tree and plant caretaker. I was gobsmacked to say the least.

 Trees were meant to be cut down to make way for McDonalds’ parking lots, inspire insipid poems that 4th graders needed to memorize, and knock down errant golf balls.  (Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of D- Day and former  U. S. President, urged Augusta National Golf Club to cut down a tree on the 17th hole that consistently stymied his tee shot).

As the years peeled away and I grew more gray, I learned respect for green. Peripatetic journeys with my botany-wise spouse and selected artificial intelligence plant apps opened up the world of beauty and ecological necessities of our flora. The mountain ash leaves feeding an army of tadpoles, our Red Osier Dogwood stabilizing our topsoil and preventing erosion, sunflowers blooming in summer and providing sustenance for bees, the Oregon Crabapple providing shelter and food for the Bluebird and Cardinal, and the joyful human stroll under the elevated tunnel of American Elms lining the Literary Walk at Central Park, are fine examples of the edification and beauty I had discovered in my new-found hobby of tree identification and exploration. 

Dr. G had seen decades of turmoil and tragedy mending the human body in East LA. He found tranquility and peace tending the South Pacific flora thousands of miles from the mainland. His time spent caring for trees, I would like to think, was like a healing tonic for a soul undoubtedly troubled and fractured from the many toils and challenges of practicing medicine and surgery for decades.  In a sense, he was finding his humanity and giving back to the planet what we have taken for granted for so long: the life-giving beauty of the Kingdom Plantae.  I have to admit, I completely understood.

Posted on

Travel Mishaps

Fifty-two years ago my dorm roommate and I hitchhiked from the University of Buffalo to        SUNY Albany. Three successive rides found us in the commercial district of Syracuse. As the day passed, the temperature dropped and the cars whizzed by our outstretched hypothermic thumbs. Dejected, we walked to the Bus Station and contemplated our next step. With no time and no money for a round-trip to Albany and back to Buffalo, we bought a one way ticket back to our starting point of Buffalo. We sat down next to a middle aged man in a wrinkled suit and waited for our Greyhound bus. “Is there a decent restaurant around here?” we asked our seatmate. “There is a great Italian restaurant around the corner,” he stated confidently. Pooling our meager resources we sought out the trattoria and ordered a plate of pasta. The spaghetti was served as stiff as straw.  Our resident restaurant critic at the bus station had clearly steered us wrong.

Twenty years later, my hitchhiking days behind me, I drove with a friend to San Francisco. With the passenger seat littered with AAA and Rand McNally maps, my navigator advised staying on I-80 as the Embarcadero came into view.  “On no!”, I muttered, as I realized I was going the wrong way on the LONG Oakland Bay Bridge toward Oakland and was doomed to pay a double toll. 

Undeterred by my past travel mistakes, my family embarked on a European vacation at the turn of the century. My spouse, a capable cartographer and blessed with a directional sense like a passenger pigeon,  assured me that we were not going to get lost. We rented a Renault in Paris, buckled up our two boys,  and set out to discover the continent.  A few miles out  I failed to translate the “sens unique” (one-way sign, not covered in High School French). Sweating profusely, I made an instantaneous U turn and avoided a vacation ending collision. We arrived in Aachen, Germany and entered a museum devoted to Charlemagne. The exhibit explanations were in German with no translation. Ich bin ein Berliner and aufedasein were the extent of our German vocabulary. We detoured to the snack bar to complete the museum experience. That evening we arrived in Strasbourg with a thimble full of gas in the tank. The next morning, I pulled into the gas station, opened the gas tank door and noticed French instruction on the inside door (words, again not covered in High School French). I filled the tank and set off to Switzerland. A few miles onto the highway, the car started to lurch and emit a high pitched moan as I was shifting my manual transmission into 2nd gear. I got off the highway into rush hour Strasbourg traffic when the car led out a cringe worthy groan and stalled. Behind our Renault were at least 50 angry French commuters yelling French words (that again were not covered in High School French class). Later that day, a mechanic, with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his lip, informed me of my error of filling up a diesel engine with regular gas. He muttered some unintelligible French sentences but my rudimentary French picked up some words (stupide: stupid, guignol: clown).

After the ordeal, we decided to recharge with French cuisine. The bill came and I calculated the tip by mentally converting dollars into Francs. I mistakenly used the wrong currency in the calculation and was off by a factor of ten. The waiter was elated by his generous tip and my wallet was a good deal lighter.  I had finished the day with a trifecta of vacation gaffes.

I am now millions of neurons lighter in the 21st century compared with my youthful self but have gained “vacation bonus IQ points” with the advent of smartphone technology. Currency converters keep tabs on the foreign exchange markets by the nanosecond.  Apple and Google Maps keep me on track and down the right one way streets. I was cruising in the Mojave Desert on I-15 last week and the app warned of an accident (truck on fire) halting all traffic for 2 hours. As the temperatures soared in the desert, I placed a  call to the California Highway Patrol.   The California Highway Patrol representative asked, “ What lane are you in?”  “The far left lane,” I answered. “Stay in that lane. We just opened up that lane 60 seconds ago and you should be good.” Seconds later, the cars started to inch forward and we made our way past the accident. It was highway nirvana. 

Language barriers have fallen. Despite English ubiquity, Google Translate helped convert German menus, German museum placards and German signs into understandable jargon.  Impractical high school French classes devoid of real life vocabulary are no longer  dangerously impactful. Choosing a restaurant no longer requires a recommendation from a fellow bus passenger.  Today, Yelp, Google and TripAdvisor have us covered wherever we go in the world. 

 In May of this year, we took a trip through Eastern Europe for almost a month without a hitch.  I relied heavily on my technology loaded Iphone, T-Mobile cell towers and an occasional friendly recommendation from an equally tech savvy European citizen.  But travels would not be travels without mishaps that many times end up being memorable happy accidents.  The proof:  many years later these are the stories my family and I speak of and write about.

I am still recovering from my Diesel Mishap but encouraged to know that fossil fuels are in the rear view mirror and electric vehicles in the future will have only one plug to choose from. 

I

Posted on

Message to Comic-Con Museum: Add Superman ASAP

It has been 40 years that I have perambulated Balboa Park and admired its variety of museums. The Hall of Champions was one of my favorites given my obsession with all things sports. It was bittersweet looking at the exhibits knowing that San Diego had an acute shortage of victors in professional sports. The AFL Chargers of Lance Alworth fame from the early 1960’s, way before the NFL merger, were an exception. The Padres, losers of two World Series, Dennis Conner, who lost America’s Cup Yachting race after 132 years of successful American defense and the loss of two NBA franchises were reminders of San Diego’s “snake bitten” past.

In 2017 the Hall ceased operation and a new museum was to take its place. Inspired by the summer Comic Con Convention, its mission was to educate and entertain the public with comic and popular art forms. It vision, summarized on the website:

  • Thrive as a world-class attraction and gateway to popular art, culture, and life-long learning for San Diego residents and visiting tourists.
  • Serve as a pop culture focal point, enhancing the ways San Diego celebrates its unique place in the popular culture landscape.
  • Enhance the economic strength of the community.
  • Become a sustainable model for equitable and environmentally-sound community service through our practices and offerings.

The hard opening of the museum on July 1st featured the Marvel Universe, Spiderman and all his glories and Ernest Hemingway in comics. I strolled up to the entrance and asked a spokesperson about the details of the Superman exhibit. “Oh we don’t have a Superman exhibit yet,” she said. “But we are in negotiations with DC Comics.” “How could this be?“, I mused as the 12 year old inside of me tried to cope with this disappointment. My formative years were shaped by Action and Superman Comics. I learned about inflation (10 cents/copy in 1960, 12 cents a few years later), toxicology (green, gold and red kryptonite), journalism (The Daily Planet and its staff) and infatuation (I had a crush on Linda Lee Danvers, Supergirl’s alias). 

I had pressing 21st century questions for the Superman franchise: How had climate change affected the Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic? Did the Daily Planet survive and gain a digital footprint? Superman is faster than a locomotive but is he faster than a Saturn Rocket?

I respect all of the Gen Xers, Millennials and pre-baby boomers who revere Marvel and will flock to San Diego in the coming days to attend Comic Con and its new museum. But I implore all  baby boomers and supporters to take action. The “Man of Steel” who stands for “Truth, Justice and the American Way” is needed now more than ever.

Posted on

Peering into the Past and Future: Riding Down the Rhine and Danube

It was time to travel despite a war in Eastern Europe, runaway inflation, political turmoil and exploding Omicron SARS-CoV2 variants. With a KN-95 mask, COVID antigen tests and $50 worth of digital guidebooks in hand, we boarded a river boat to glide upstream down the Rhine, Mein and Danube, from Amsterdam to Budapest  to find history, fine spirits and the origins of ancestor’s past. 

We were going to the edge of civilization, as the Romans had defined it circa 2000 years ago. The Rhine and Danube were the North and Eastern boundaries of the empire, warding off the barbarians, the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths and Franks. The Franks had plundered Eastern and Western Europe, united under Charlemagne and eventually (?with the help of intermarriage and French wine) settled down in France so their ancestors could appreciate fine architecture, food and Jerry Lewis.

 The tragedies of history were retold by guides, museums and historical plaques as the craft dodged buoys and passed feudal castles. In Amsterdam, Cologne, Regensburg, Vienna, Rothenburg, Bratislava and Budapest were military monuments, holocaust memorials, mass graves, ramparts and moats, museum artifacts, artillery and ballistic impacts on stone walls that testified to perpetual war and oppression from the Middle Ages onward. The grievances are engraved in our schoolbooks: Romans v. Barbarians, Christians v. Arabs (Crusades 1-4), Protestants v. Catholics (30 Years War and others), Ottoman Empire v. “Civilized” Europe, Habsburgs v. National Uprisings in the mid nineteenth Century, Prussian Wars of the late 19th century.  The 20th century brought us World Wars I and II ending the Holy Roman and Ottoman Empires and Hitler and the Third Reich at the expense of over 60 million lives.

As we headed South and East along the Rivers, I encountered glimpses of my Jewish heritage. The Jewish Diaspora from antiquity forced migration from Western to Eastern Europe along the Rhine and Danube. Jews were  multilingual merchants, bridging the Arab and European divide and helping to create the trade routes from Asia, Africa and Europe. They were artisans in the pre-industrial world and creators of the financial world that allowed the development of city-states. Judaism financed the release of Richard the Lion Hearted of England’s release from captivity and paid for the defense of Vienna against Ottoman Invasion in the 17th century. Yet, each town’s history was marked by the same recurring theme: Jewish expulsion and persecution.

Tragedy often begets opportunity. Science, medicine and art blossomed along these European river tributaries. Booerhaave, the Dutch physician, organized hospital divisions, defined pathology and described his eponymous esophageal rupture syndrome. Dicke, an Amsterdam physician, recognized  abdominal pain and diarrhea in Dutch children reintroduced to bread following privations of World War II and described celiac disease. Down the Rhine at Erlangen, Germany, Demling and Classen devised a modified electrified wire passed through an endoscope and allowed non surgical removal of bile duct stones in a jaundiced nurse in 1973, introducing therapeutic biliary endoscopy to the world. Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen, discoverer of X rays, taught on the Mein River at Wurzburg in the late 19th century. Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis treatise and practice was a part of 1890’s Vienna. Laszlo Biro from Budapest, invented the ballpoint pen and freed the world from fountain pen leakage.

Music flourished along the river, providing the world with the classics from Mahler, Mozart, Beethoven and Liszt.

 History was infused in everything we saw and consumed. I ate herring in Amsterdam as the Dutch West India Company sailors did before traveling to Nieuw Amsterdam and quaffed Riesling from The Rhine Valley from Middle Age monastery vineyards. A McDonalds and statues of Ronald Reagan and George Bush in Budapest were symbols of who won the Cold War. 

The realities of the past portend the fragility of peace for the future. The murmurs from these ancient rivers give us pause to respect and cherish our freedoms. 

Mozart’s Piano
Budapest Market
Rhine Wine
Vineyard Rudesheim Germany
Rembrandt’s Studio
Flowers in Amsterdam
On the Amsterdam Canal
Children on Margaret Island Budapest
Posted on

The House that Ruth (Beer) Built

I was perched in the upper deck of venerable Yankee Stadium as the dulcet tones of “O Canada” serenaded the patrons. As the Yankees took the field for a day game against the Toronto Bluejays, my thoughts turned toward food and beverage. A hot dog and a beer, I mused, was the classic choice. I felt the kinship of brews from the past, imagining my Uncles’ Bill and Herman and Cousin Jack quaffing Ballentine, Rheingold and Knickerbocker Beer under the facade as the IRT Subway rumbled by and DiMaggio rounded the bases.

I was well aware of the importance of beer in life and in baseball. It established prehistoric man’s enthusiasm for agriculture, paid the wages of those who built the pyramids and motivated  thousands of undergraduates to learn beer pong. In the mid 19th century, immigrants from Europe migrated across the Atlantic, to the land of opportunity.  One in particular, the Bavarian Franz Ruppert, established a brewery in  New York to slake the thirst of 19th century New Yorkers. Franz’s grandson, Jacob Ruppert, Jr. inherited the brewery from his father and purchased the struggling New York Highlanders in 1915. With his “beer wealth” he rebranded the club the Yankees, bought Babe Ruth from the Red Sox, established the farm team system, put numbers on the player’s uniforms and moved the Yankees out of the Polo Grounds and into a new Yankee Stadium in the South Bronx.

 Ninety-nine years after the opening of the original Yankee Stadium and 27 championships later, the “beer magnate’s” acumen has proven successful.

The memories of Three Ring Ballentine and Knickerbocker Beer have faded but the smell of outfield turf, and the aroma of malt and hops in the upper deck and bleachers in the Bronx in springtime lives on. And as the 20th century philosopher and late Yankee announcer Mel Allen opined, “How about that!”

Posted on

Searching for One’s Youth In Retirement

Retirement is the quest for one’s lost youth. My ace in the hole might be a worm hole,  which is  a celestial conduit to shrink time and space and therefore a chance to time travel back to my healthier optimistic younger self. This vision was shattered when Neil deGrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking pronounced time travel incompatible with current physics theories. My 401K, ear marked for purchasing a used DeLorean and a Flux Capacitor for time travel, was now to be directed to other pursuits.

Plan B was a more prosaic pathway for youthful pursuits: relocate to South Florida known as the “sixth borough” of New York City. I found myself approaching the 8th decade of life in the company of nonagenarians who referred to me as “sonny” and “junior.” The airwaves were filled with promises of youthful regeneration: dental implants to restore vitality to your oral cavity, walkers that will bestow Olympic style feats to your daily regimen and skin fillers that will erase your wrinkles.

Working venues for conversation shifted from corporate boardrooms and hospital clinic corridors to the retirement social gathering places of Florida: card rooms, MahJong parlors, something called a “PickleBall court” and golf course tee boxes.  Comments from my contemporaries at the  the diners and delis now include: “remember when the subway cost 10 cents,” “do you recall John Glenn circling the earth from a black and white TV in school?” 

One day, on a typical golf tee in South Florida adjacent to an alligator filled water hazard, a taciturn man removed his tee peg from the ground and began the traditional exchange of identities to the rest of the foursome. “A retired principal and educator from the Northeast” I heard. The conversation continued as specifics of his working life seemed to get closer to the geography of my youth. The Northeast became New York City and then Queens and then Bayside. I furtively glanced at his golf bag and a name tag came into view. This was Mr. Thompson, my 7th grade science teacher! For an instant, I entered my private wormhole back to 1966. It was a school day and I was out of class without a hall monitor pass. Did I break the Erlenmeyer flask, and if so, would Mr. Thompson charge me with interest (compounding at 3% with a 56 year late fee)? Will I ever dunk a basketball and why don’t I get invited to middle school parties? The shooting pain in my back brought me back  to the 21st century and present day reality. 

Mr. Thompson had an advanced degree in chemistry, devoting his life to teaching generations of middle school science students. As we walked through the palm trees and sawgrass, he provided the details of maintaining educational excellence as principal and backstories of teachers living in the ’60’s that were ensconced in my archaic memory.

I struck my next shot and watched it splash in the H20 hazard, descending into the briny NaCl estuary and settling into the amino acid coated bottom. Mr. Thompson approved of my nomenclature which softened the grief of the lost ball. 

As the wormhole to the past closed up, I reflected on the good fortune of having dedicated and respected public school educators bestowing knowledge to a clueless adolescent.   However, the real joy of discovering your former science teacher on the golf course 56 yrs later was watching his facial expression spread with pride as I told him of his influence in guiding and preparing me for a career in medicine.   He thanked me for the closure and said the broken Erlenmeyer flask was forgiven. It was a perfect day on the golf course and I felt a definite youthful spring in my step.

Posted on

Life Measured in NFL Memories

The tears were streaming down my face in 1963 as my father ushered us into his Oldsmobile and drove to my grandmother’s house in Brooklyn in stone-cold silence. My beloved New York Giants had just lost the NFL Championship to the Chicago Bears, ending a run of Championship games and to enter last place purgatory for years to come. “How could they lose with Sam Huff, Jim Katcavage, Y.A. Tittle, and Frank Gifford on the field,” I stammered, squeezing my Kyle Rote autographed football ever more tightly in the back seat.

Emotion and memory are forever linked in our national psyche and football has a tight grip on both. The exact street where I stood 1/2 century ago when I learned the Giants drafted the running back, Tucker Frederickson and later traded for QB Fran Tarkenton are branded into my senescent consciousness. Later, in college, watching on a black & white TV and manipulating the rabbit ears to get a clearer picture, I saw Roger Staubach come into view. My roommate, entered the living room after an all night Bridge tournament, told me to spread the rabbit ears wider, declared his intent to abandon professional card playing for a try at a veterinarian school at precisely the same moment that Staubach defeated the Miami Dolphins 24-3 in Super Bowl VI. 

Living in San Diego in the late 70’s and early ’80’s, I was caught up in Charger frenzy. Orchestrated by Coach Don “Air” Coryell, QB Dan Fouts, and receivers Charley Joiner and Kellen Winslow needed a minimum of 40+ points a game to have a chance to win. The Miami-Charger overtime gem in 1981, viewed in a bar in Pacific Beach with a gaggle of inebriated surfers, was an all time football high. I was hugging total strangers exhaling Miller High Life fumes and loving it. One week later the Chargers succumbed to Cincinnati in the infamous Ice Bowl and I fell into a deep fan abyss.

Football frenzy was destined to envelop my children. My older son was born on a day the Giants won. We exulted in the Giants two Super Bowl wins in the 21st Century and held on tight through Chargers wins and losses. My sons were there for the Charger playoff win over Indianapolis Colts, LaDanian Tomlinson’s record breaking rushing yardage game and the excruciating loss against the Jets in the 2010 first round playoff. 

As I tune into Super Bowl LVI this weekend, I will remember the rabbit ears, my father’s recall of QB Norm Van Brocklin and Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch of 1950’s Ram fame, the players of my youth and hope that the current and future players held in esteem by my children and children’s children will bring them the joy of the NFL fan.

Posted on

The Real Genie in Genealogy

As new grandparents, we await the wondrous moments of human development to flow into our much loved grandson. It has also awakened our curiosity of what lies ahead during his lifetime after we are a forgotten footnote of family lore. Sensing our own sense of evanescence, my wife and I embarked on the worldwide pursuit of genealogy. Who are our ancestors? What were their struggles?  What can we learn about the past that we can pass on to the future members of our family?

I strolled through the American Museum of Natural History and came across the hominid tree. Australopithecus, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens were primitive versions of modern man but broadly complex and contained too many branch points to fully understand and impossible, of course, to trace back to our grandson.  Lessons of life on the Serengeti may not be helpful in our grandson’s future. Consequently,  I narrowed the scope by 250,000 years by downloading MacFamily Tree 2019 and joining ancestry.com. 

Standing on the shoulders of prior family tree creators, I embarked on tracing my wife’s ancestors. A few clicks and I was back eight generations and landed in the 17th century in Scotland and Ireland. Her tree was historically stocked with five Revolutionary War heroes, an indispensable aide-de-camp of George Washington, and our 11th President, James Knox Polk. 

Documenting my dearly departed Ashkenazi Jewish brethren proved a more difficult challenge. I summoned wisps of memory from late relatives recalling a “Civil War soldier,”  an  “uncle with a battle injury,” and a “Wall Street merchant.”  The documents were sparse to non-existent until I summoned the meager Eastern European geography clues left in the U.S. census forms of my ancestors. One patriarch listed his origin as Poland Russia and emigrated to New York in 1865, returned to his native land and then returned again to the US in 1875 with a wife 30 years his junior. What were the circumstances that prompted this circuitous path? What made him leave the US so quickly after his perilous journey? Unlike my wife’s clearly documented centuries of ancestor life, including details of her Presidential cousin’s kidney stones in 1812, my great grandfather’s trail turned cold. Serendipitously, he showed up in a Civil War Archive as a private in the 41st Regiment in 1865. As a replacement soldier, he received $300 so that the wealthy could be spared the injury and death that the war bestowed upon its participants. His regiment consisted of European foreigners regaled in the New York press due to their “extensive experience” in wars fought in Eastern Europe. Their return to New York City in 1865, after 70% of the regiment had perished, was snubbed by the mayor who sent a city councilman to attend the ceremony. I could understand his return to  his native land and family after these events. But WHY did he return ten years later? History of Russian Poland filled in the explanation. Poland ceased to exist in 1795 and was carved up by the imperial powers of Russia, The Habsburg Monarchy (Austria) and Prussia. Numerous national uprisings against the occupying powers occurred in the 19th century. Russia was particularly brutal in suppressing the uprisings and singling out ethnic groups, especially Jews for punishment. The Pale of Settlement, enacted by Catherine the Great in 1791 and enforced by subsequent Tsars,  prevented Jews from migrating eastward to Russia and limited Jewish involvement in public life. Jews were forced to serve in Russian military service for 20 years and their children were coerced to participate in exchange programs with other ethnic families so that Jewish children could be “Russified” and  their Jewish heritage could be suppressed. With the assassination of the Tsar Alexander II in 1881, widespread pogroms that indiscriminately killed Jews were encouraged by the government.  Fascism, while not invented in Eastern Europe, thrived in the urban and rural areas.  This singled out the Jewish minority for the ills of society and excluded them from national life. Out of this maelstrom of terror and unrest came Jewish charity and unified cooperation amongst communities for survival and ultimately migration Westward.

With this background, my great-grandfather permanently emigrated to New York City. His children took jobs as clerks, shop girls, “fancy goods” peddlers and paper cutters.  One young relative was employed as a “lemon squeezer” in presumptively a bar. The family took in boarders to put food on the table. My great-grandmother, known to me when I was 8 and in the throes of advanced dementia, had many years earlier extricated herself from poverty and became a nurse-midwife.  Sacrifice for the family was evident when sifting through the detailed census information at the turn of the 20th century. Military records recorded service in the first and second World Wars with distinguished service and injuries incurred in battle.

Our hominid ancestors gave us upright walking, tools and reasoning. As my genealogy tree branched and diverted to other spurs, it became apparent that the accomplishments of my generation and my descendants had only been possible by the sacrifices and tribulations endured by my family. Gratitude, respect and knowing the inter-connectedness of the human condition is the take home lesson to  pass on to my new grandson who begins his story before our very eyes.

Posted on

Hope for My Grandson’s Future

The alarm blared at 6:00 AM wakening me from a deep slumber. An early message in retirement is never a good thing, I thought, as I brought up the message icon. Our ‘grandson to be’ had decided to arrive five weeks early. We booked our airline flights to the nation’s capitol and arrived, rumpled and tumbled by the Uber drive over the Potomac, to our hotel off the National Mall.

Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing, we pondered, as grandparents with 70 lifetime years of pediatric and internal medicine experiences. Lung function, oxygen requirements, surfactant, feeding ability, brain development and infection risk percolated through our collective anxiety. Scientific probability tempered with prayer was the way to dispel these troubling thoughts.

He was born fully formed, loudly screaming and feisty. He entered the Neonatal ICU for warmth, feeding, oxygen and observation time for the next 10 days as we wandered around Washington, D.C. awaiting his discharge and arrival to his parents’ home.

My  anxiety was heightened by the present and past of the U.S.A.  A man with a train conductor’s hat sat in front of the White House blaring music and chanting, “We are on the train of destruction.” Placards in front of the Capitol declared the illegality of vaccination for union workers. We strolled to our grandson’s future home by passing the Garfield Statue (assassinated president) and Ulysses S. Grant on Horseback (Civil War with 600,000 dead). We continued on past well dressed legislative assistants (struggling to pass much needed infrastructure bills) coming out of the Richard Russell Building.  I looked up Richard Russell, who was a former Senator from Georgia who defended Jim Crow and obstructed Civil Rights legislation, and wondered how his name was chosen for an entire building in Washington DC. 

Our grandson was thriving, gaining weight and bonding with his parents. Relieved, we passed the time in our nation’s collective warehouse: the Smithsonian Institution. Endowed by James Smithson, a wealthy Englishman who dabbled in chemistry and mineralogy in 1820, who generously donated his inheritance to a country he never set foot in for the cause to advance science and knowledge.  The Wright Brothers started their research through the museum’s scientific holdings and solved the heavier than air flight conundrum that baffled the world’s best minds. Lieutenant Commander Philip Van Horn Weems, recruited by Charles Lindbergh to perfect a better aviation navigational system led to an era of safer air travel for all. We saw the art of Saul Bellows documenting urban life in the early 20th century and appreciated the genius of the early neoclassical architects such as James Renwick, Charles Bullfinch and William Thornton who shaped our Capitol and early federal buildings.

At the Library of Congress we saw a portion of the over 800 miles of library stacks and more than 25,000,000 volumes that are available to all Americans that wish to research any topic and can participate in a plethora of summer programs for kids to introduce them to learning and research. This spectacularly beautiful building was full of historical treasures and important information. For example, we learned of the accountability of a democracy, embodied by the Presidential Recovery Act of 1978 that transfers Presidential papers to the public domain after office. This Federal Act was prompted by the willful burning of presidential records by Grover Cleveland, Millard Fillmore and numerous other Commanders-in-Chief.  

Throughout our stay in DC we continued our US historical scavenger hunt: we saw the documents of Lincoln establishing agricultural/land grant colleges in the 19th century that created American engineering superiority, the bravery of Harriet Tubman guiding slaves to their freedom through the Underground Railroad and the bigger than life statue of Albert Einstein in front of the National Science Administration accompanied by his proclamation of free thought in his new country and safe harbor away from fascism.

Opportunity, American ingenuity, hard work and the limitless resources of art, science, politics and jurisprudence documented in our nation’s capitol left us truly humbled. The presence of such endless possibility that is freely bestowed upon every American Citizen— in the backdrop of our grandson’s birth— left us in awe and rendered us speechless.

 Our grandson graduated from the Neonatal ICU into his home now several ounces heavier, with healthy lungs and an animated disposition. We, as grandparents, are now in the grandstand joyfully watching every moment of his wonderful life. Just knowing that opportunity and choice are around the corner as he grows and prospers in our great country brings us comfort as US citizens and hope for a brighter future for our newest patriot and family member.

  • Library of Congress Reading Room
  • Protest Signs outside of Capitol
  • Original 19th Century Columns Nation’s Capitol
Posted on

Hidden Agendas in Medicine, Politics and Journalism

“You’re out,” shouted Matt.  Matt was the second baseman and bonafide schoolyard bully whose underlying goal was to win every game. “Fielder’s choice and I get to decide,” he declared as if he was a major league umpire.  With sweat dripping from my brow, I dutifully left 2nd base in the sweltering summer of the mid ’60’s in Queens. After the game, I consulted a higher authority (my dad) who informed me that fielder’s choice did not give infielders the right to choose who is or is not out.  It would be a conflict of interest, he told me.  I brought this enlightened info back to my stickball overlord and was greeted by scorn and a subtle threat of possible physical harm in the future. 

While learning about truth, honesty, civility and camaraderie in school, the real world of hidden agendas creeped in. New and improved Fruit Loops tasted  exactly the same as the old Fruit Loops. Two box tops and $2.00 did not get you “life sized action figures” but ant sized plastic toy soldiers. Reality only accelerated with age. “This VCR  is state of the art and will remain a standard for years,” the Circuit City salesman told me with a straight face in 1982 as I drained my bank account of $1,200.  Obviously, the advertising on cereal boxes and a stereo salesman suffered from hidden agendas or conflicts of interest.

The world of medicine brought its own litany of hidden agendas. Pharmaceutical representatives extolling the virtue of their brand name products when a generic and a lower cost substitute achieved the same goals. I entered the profession during the era of drug sponsored free Caribbean vacations, five star restaurant outings,  and “free” basketball playoff tickets. Was there a potential for bias in prescribing habits when you’re cutting into a filet mignon paid for by an acid reducer you haven’t used before? One would have to think so.

Transparency in medicine became clearer when government edicts regulated Pharma’s gifts to the medical profession. The trips, five star restaurants, and  sporting event tickets disappeared.  Finally, even complementary pens and trackpads were forbidden. Quite rightly, transparency in prescribing was demanded by consumers. Today, the consumer can check on their provider’s lunch reimbursements, Medicare payments, and Big Pharma consultant fees. A simple internet search will quickly reveal the truth regarding your doctors financial ties—if any— to pharmaceutical companies and the like.

Regretfully, most of the world operates with hidden agendas and conflicts of interest unbeknownst to the consumer or general public. However, to the world of medicine’s credit, regulatory agents have collectively required physicians to publicly reveal conflicts of interest.  For example, if you are a physician presenting a paper at a meeting regarding your research on a drug, you must disclose any conflict you have with the company making or marketing said drug.  Furthermore, your research paper must cite any conflict you have as well.

Certain areas of the field of medicine have escaped transparency and issues of reporting conflicts of interest.  Lobbying has produced the DSHEA Act of 1994 which stripped regulation and FDA oversight from over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. Many over-the-counter medicines have not been subjected to vigorous oversight or proof of efficacy.  Billions of dollars of products are bought that may have little or no assurance that they help or improve what it professes to do on the package information. Fortunes have been made from this lack of transparency to the patient slash consumer.  It would seem, in the public’s interest, that a warning indicating that a product that has not been rigorously tested and proven in its stated efficacy, should be placed on the product packaging.

It seems that physicians and some areas of medicine are leaders in self-reporting conflicts of interest and public available transparency of these conflicts should be the standard applied to all businesses that interface with the public at large.  For example, politics operates in the world of dark money facilitated by Citizen’s United and the death of campaign reform.  So when a politician publicly espouses a certain political opinion, why do they not have to disclose any influence or conflicts of interest they might have that would benefit from their political stance on an issue?  Doesn’t the American citizen need this transparency to be an educated voter?

Furthering this argument, Journalists in a variety of communication forums report information in the public’s best interest.  Under their by-line in a newspaper or in a chyron on the bottom your television screen there should be a clear statement of any conflict of interest the journalist might have.  If you own stock in a company that spilled oil into the ocean, I’d like to know that when you present information on the oil-spill.  

A rational world should apply the rules that govern conflicts of interest or hidden agendas in a schoolyard playground the same as they should in the world of medicine, politics and journalism to name a few.  Self-reporting, fairness, and truthfulness should be a minimal requirement for all who interface with the public who are purportedly looking out for your best interest.  

Let’s level the playing field.