Abstainer or Moderator
I was surprised I had never come across a concise explanation of two different methods for maintaining good health. This very brief article talks about how people would approach any habit or behavior (most relevant for the unhealthy ones). If your office had a huge box of donuts sitting out, how could you best resist overindulging? Would you have one donut, just enough to get a boost of happiness and stop thinking about how good they look? Or would it be easier to not even go near the donuts; Not even open the box and end up 2 glazed and one long Jon deep, asleep at your desk. It is a question of temperance vs abstinence. It would vary by person, and by decision. Figuring out your own strengths and weaknesses and planning ahead can make a huge difference.
Connect with Patients (put down the laptop)
A brief article from an ER newspaper talks about the book Blink and a study predicting which physicians would face a malpractice suit. Bedside manner is so important! “Here is the most remarkable part—the actual words themselves seem to make no difference as long as the tone is pleasing. Researchers in that same study blurred the enunciation so listeners could hear only the doctors’ pitch, rhythm, and inflection, not what they said. It’s possible to predict which doctors will be sued without even hearing the words. Apparently, there is truth to the old adage that it’s not what you say but how you say it.”
African American Medical Pioneers
Hektoen International is a Journal of Medical Humanities with great content. This piece summarizes seven medical pioneers who overcame unfathomable adversity simply to become physicians, going on to contribute to medicine. Look at some of the details on just one of these doctors, Dr James Smith. This guy is my hero!
Dr. James McCune Smith was the first African American to earn a medical degree and practice in the United States. Born in 1813, Smith was the son of a self-emancipated slave … He was an excellent student, and was selected at age eleven to give a speech for the Marquis de Lafayette during a visit. Upon graduation, he was apprenticed at a blacksmith shop, but continued his education privately, learning Greek and Latin. Smith then applied to medical colleges throughout New York, but was turned away because of his race. Black abolition and religious leaders in New York funded his education, and he traveled to Scotland to study at the University of Glasgow. There he received his medical degree in 1837. Smith studied the classics, languages, statistics, and philosophy. He was fluent in Greek, Latin, and French and proficient in four other languages. His medical education concluded with clinical work in Paris following a year-long infirmary clerkship.
Two Types of Time
Alive time and dead time. “One is when you sit around, when you wait until things happen to you. The other is when you are in control, when you make every second count, when you are learning and improving and growing.” Dead time is certainly acceptable when we need a break from all that is going on. But before you find yourself a few hours in on TV shows or Instagram, think about a more useful way to spend time. *Important note: watching the TV show Ozark counts as alive time.
Filtered Coffee
Another coffee article. This one looked at the components of coffee depending on the brewing method. One study concluded that paper filters made the healthiest coffee, by allowing in the beneficial molecules and filtering out some that are associated with risk (cafestol and kahweol). Importantly, yet again some coffee consumption was healthier than none (1-4 cups optimal).
Religion
Check out this interesting piece on a “secular case for religion.” I think the author’s goal is to argue for the materialist approach, but I appreciated the instances of arguments in favor of religion. Here are a couple of quotes, and another one at the end of the newsletter.
[H]umans actually don’t know whether human beings can live sustainably without something like religion…Until we have had a lot longer to develop non-religious heuristics that work, we should not throw the precautionary, religion-as-risk-management baby out with the superstitious, theological-claptrap bathwater.
This is known as a “Chesterton’s fence” argument; the principle that seeing no use in something is the worst reason to get rid of it, because it suggests one is blind to the real use. Taleb gives examples of the supposed hidden utility of religion, claiming, for example, that the commandments of the three Abrahamic religions to refrain from usury (lending with interest) were formulated to defend against financial crises like the 2008 recession.
Quotes:
“Something we cannot see protects us from something we do not understand. The thing we cannot see is culture, in its intrapsychic or internal manifestation. The thing we do not understand is the chaos that gave rise to culture. If the structure of culture is disrupted, unwittingly, chaos returns.”
Jordan Peterson in Maps of Meaning
“Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.”
Voltaire
