Thoughts of a retired physician

And now Omicron. Skipping over nu and chi for reasons of clarity, we now have Omicron (Ο) as the latest variant of concern in the covid pandemic. Scientists, public health officials, and epidemiologists are working overtime to understand this new variant. The best to say at the moment is that we are gathering the data and have precious few real answers to the myriad of questions. Multiple nations, including the United States, closed travel from the southern countries of Africa where O likely emerged. This is of doubtful real efficacy as cases have been reported from multiple nations in Europe, as well as Asia and Australia. Locking the barn door after the horse has fled seems to be a common occurrence with this pandemic but simply shows that in an interconnected world, walls and barriers are meaningless political statements rather than real public health policy. South Africa needs support and praise, not shunning.  The origin of O is also of interest. The current thought is that an in

  The human brain is the organ that literally makes us human. A product of long evolution, it has produced all of the art, music, culture, and science that we see today. From birth, we witness the miracles of its development -- awareness, language skills, motor skills, sociability. When adolescence occurs, parents and others are often frustrated at behaviors that seem completely irrational. What is increasingly evident in studies of adolescents and their brains is that they are really immature. It is apparent now that the maturation of the brain continues through adolescence and is only completed in our mid-20s. It is clear that the limbic system and the centers for rewards are mature years before the frontal cortex; this helps explain why adolescents often engage in risky behavior which often leads to morbidity and mortality. In the United States, 71% of deaths between the ages of 10 and 24 are from four causes : motor-vehicle accidents, other unintentional trauma, homicide, and sui

  I was in college when I discovered how interesting microbiology was. I majored in it and found the courses in medical school equally interesting. I did a senior year rotation in infectious diseases at Temple under Bennett Lorber, then a new assistant professor fresh from his infectious diseases fellowship. This was in January 1974 and I was hooked. The Navy offered me a fellowship in 1981 after a tour as a general internist at Naval Hospital Guantanamo Bay; I then spent two years at Naval Hospital San Diego which was tremendous fun as well as accelerated learning. The program at San Diego was also a shaping one. The problem of sexually transmitted diseases, especially gonorrhea, drove the research part of my fellowship. Little did I know how it would affect me for the remainder of my medical career. At Naval Medical Center Portsmouth Virginia, a full decade of running an HIV Evaluation Unit with Margan certainly cemented the importance of these diseases in my psyche. Upon retirement

  Spent last week with Margan in Santa Barbara. Nice to just get away for some “our” time and see a few new things. Santa Barbara is beautiful but we could tell the pandemic had hit the downtown pretty hard. Went to the Old Mission, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the SB Zoo, and the SB Botanical Gardens. I Will get back to more serious stuff next week but here are a few photos of our trip. Old Mission Santa Barbara Panoramic View, Old Mission Santa Barbara Bronze Bust, SB Museum of Art Santa Ynez Mountains from SB Botanical Gardens