El Ateneo

I'm so sad I forgot to bring my camera today!

After a nice walk along Santa Fe, with some window shopping of course, I stopped at El Ateneo. El Ateneo was an old theater where many of BA's greats performed, and now it still has its original bones but has been made into a wonderful bookstore. I had a terrific lunch at the cafe, which is where the stage used to be.  I ate a delicious fugazzetta, that was amazing with some hot tea on this stormy day. Fugazzetta reminds you of Argentina's Italian heritage, with a BA twist. It's a rich cheesy pizza with onions and oregano.

El Ateneo

A replica of the fugazetta I had for lunch

Me in El Ateneo previously

Weekly Goods

A good book...
Hilary Rodham Clinton's Living History
Finally finished it. My favorite part of the book was learning more about her younger days, at Wellesly College especially. It was also interesting to hear her opinions on the contrast between her image as First Lady when she tried to take on legislative roles vs advocate for women's rights internationally. Her China speech as Women's Rights being Human Rights is historic, a must watch, and an excellent call to arms. "If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all". I know that in the development world so many people are advocating for women's rights as a path towards development, and I think Hilary was the one who really set that agenda in action. I'd be proud to support her in 2016 if and when she decides to run. I couldn't think of a better candidate.

A good song...
Let Her Go
By Passenger, this is a beautiful song. I want to learn the guitar so I can play it myself.

A good film...
Miss Representation
A few facts I learned from this film... Cuba, Iraq, China, and Afghanistan have more women in politics than the U.S.... Did you know domestic abuse was acceptable denial of insurance as a "pre-existing condition?" (Thank goodness for Obamacare)...I also didn't know that the US is the only industrialized nation without paid family leave. Jennifer Newsom did a great job.

A good talk...
Stanford Population Health Symposium 
I attended Stanford's kick off conference debuting the new department of Population Health.  The best part was my lunch table conversation with Dr. Jack Rowe, former CEO of Aetna, and Dr. Mads Melbye, head of the Danish National BioBank -to say it was an interesting conversation is an understatement.

A good youtube..
Hitting the Wall
Paula Newby Frasier, one of the epic ironman triathletes in 1995 pushed herself beyond her limits. This is a heartbreaking and inspiring video illustrating her limits. "Totally surreal". It shows how dangerous athletics can be when we are strong enough to push ourselves beyond our limits. You get knocked down, but you get up again. That's the best 4th place finish I've ever seen.

Another good week in the books.

Weekly Goods

Attempting to get back in the blogging groove, here are a few highlights of last week.

A good movie...
La Misma Luna
A wonderful movie directed by Patricia Riggen about a boy and his mother.  An enticing summary can be found here. Spanish with english subtitles, so a great movie for improving your spanish language skills as well. It's also called Under the Same Sun. Watch the movie trailer for yourself.

A good song...
Pure Imagination
A hauntingly beautiful song remade by Fiona Apple. This is the song behind Chipotle's latest advertisement, The Scarecrow.

A good book...
The Thoughtful Dresser
A novel by Linda Grant taking a closer, and more serious look into our love of fashion. She intertwines many wonderful bits of fashion history, from Chanel to Christian Dior's New Look, while telling moving stories of the power of fashion and style in the face of of atrocities against humanity. Makes me like fashion even more then I did before. Quick and easy read, if you like fashion at all, this book is for you.

A good eat...
Boulevard
After making a reservation 3 weeks ago, we finally had dinner at Boulevard. If you are up for a gourmet meal, wonderful ambience and the best halibut I've ever tasted, Boulevard is where you should eat. Chef Nancy Oakes lives up to expectations, now I want to check out her other restaurant in town, Prospect.

A good talk...
ACA Town Hall Meeting 
I attended Stanford's Affordable Care Act Town Hall Meeting today. The guest speakers were Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, California Secretary of Health & Human Services Diana Dooley, and Stanford Pediatrician Paul Wise. Enrollment in "Covered California", our health insurance exchange begins next week. Thus why House Republicans are all in a fit this week. Diana Dooley did an excellent job breaking down the 3 legs of the ACA, the delivery and finance reform, prevention and wellness aspects, and expansion of coverage. My favorite quote from the event was via Anna Eshoo, "We love our history once it's been made, but we seldom embrace the fact that we're making it". Let's hope that with the bans on lifetime insurance caps and discrimination based on pre-existing conditions that health care stops being the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US.

A good run...
Palo Alto Moonlight Run
Stanford Med came out in full force, fundraising over $6k for our free clinics in honor of former Dean Phil Pizzo, aka Marathon Man and one of my idols. I entered the 5k race, and wasn't going to push myself, because I strained my calf earlier in the week (yes injuries still mar my existence). But, when the gun went off, I couldn't help myself and I went for it. The sheer joy of racing was felt in every ounce of my being. I was grinning from ear to ear for at least the first half of the run (don't worry shortly after I started to feel like I was going to die from lactic acid). Seriously though, such a joy to be out there with everyone. Racing is a spectacular feeling! Even though I was about 200 people back and took a solid 5 minutes before we were going faster than 10 min/mile pace, I somehow managed to win my age division? I didn't even know this until my advisor emailed me saying she picked up my medal for me. Sure enough, I am now in possession of a blue ribbon medal! A surprising highlight. I think I can run a pretty good 5k in the upcoming year. So here goes nothing...

Ok, first post in two months, have to start somewhere. This was certainly a good week, hopefully I"ll have something worthy of posting soon. Pass along any "goods" from your week.

Did you know?

A piece of women's history and medical history...

The first woman accepted into medical school, Elizabeth Blackwell, was only accepted because her admission was put to a vote by the class at Geneva College of Medicine. As a joke, the class unanimously voted for her acceptance.

Turns out the joke was on them, as she went on to graduate 1st in her class in 1849.

Happy New Year!

Finished reading 50/50 by Dean Karnazes, I liked this quote he found by Darwin: " It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change"

Something to keep in mind as we make our resolutions for 2012!

Food Rules

What I liked most about Michael Pollans' compilation of advice in Food Rules wasn't the aphorisms themselves, but the creative and whimsical drawings!

Eat food, mostly plants, not too much.

The Four-Minute Mile

Yesterday I finished reading Roger Bannister's The Four-Minute Mile. It's his personal account of his life and years leading up to breaking the 4-minute mile barrier. A really terrific read if you love running and history! Might be a bit slow for non-runners, but I bet still fascinating to learn about the intricacies of this subculture of competitive track and field you might never venture into yourself. He makes a lot of poignant statements about his concerns about running transforming into a profession verse the amateur status he enjoyed while running. Roger Bannister viewed running as just a part of his life, and committed just 30 minutes a day to his training while in medical school.

Read more if you like!

Final Exam

Just finished reading Pauline Chen's Final Exam.  She came and gave a lecture at Stanford last year and I was really impressed. Her book was a good read for someone in medical school, not sure how appealing it would be to nonmed folks. She was very honest, which I appreciated, throughout the book. Good read overall!

Born to Run

Last month I finally read Born to Run, a NY Times bestseller written by Christopher McDougall that ignited the barefoot running craze. No I'm not running barefoot or wearing vibrams, but I did love the book. Born to Run is so well written, and most of all such a great story! I loved the combination of history, anthropology, data on the running industry, and the compelling characters. I was so sad when I finished reading it, I would consider reading it again, it was that good.

So if you have a chance, whether you love or hate running,  think vibrams are monkey feet or an amazing invention, I definitely suggest reading Born to Run!

Got a New Book in the Mail!

My Amazon.com order came in, my new nighttime reading is Walking Out on the Boys, a true story written by Dr. Frances Conley about her days as a neurosurgeon at Stanford and what lead her to resign from her tenured faculty position.

Vintage Book I Want:

The Cell in Development and Inheritance.

Written by Edmund Beecher Wilson in 1911. He was the first person to recognize and understand that tumor cells have abnormal chromosome divisions by looking at cells under a light microscope. He's really the founder of cellular biology, and we still use his concepts and basic findings ALL the time today. How cool is that? I think this book would be a nice addition to my small but loved collection of old books, including a recent find at the Mt. Zion Medical Library earlier this spring (a copy of William James' seminal work in psychology, "Principes of Psychology").

Must Read Author: Nevada Barr

A good friend recently clued me into the mystery author Nevada Barr. She writes amazing mysteries that are based in national parks and other scenic places. Her protagonist is tough-nosed middle-aged ranger Anna Pigeon. I finished High Country a few weeks ago and I couldn't put it down. I'm about to finish Ill Wind, another great read. I love the fact that she writes with such vivid imagery and gripping story lines that I can't wait to turn the page, but at the same time love to take in her amazing talent of describing the scenery, air, and feel of the location. These books are great for nightstand reading, beach reading, and definitely awesome if you're traveling. May be a bit scary if you're camping...(I am speaking from experience!)

The Element, by Ken Robinson

I just finished reading The Element. It's a quick and easy read. Ken defines the Element as the "sweet spot" that is the meeting point between your natural aptitude and your passion, what you love to do.

I thought it was brilliant how he modified the question "Are you intelligent?" to "How are you intelligent?". I definitely agree fully with his assertion that there are many different types and combinations of intelligences that should be valued and allowed to flourish.

While reading the book I started to think about how I'm intelligent and what disciplines I like or am particularly good at. I would say that I'm a visual person, I have to be able to see something to really understand it. I'm also quick at identifying visual patterns. I'm good at directions and orienting objects/ideas in 3D. I'm a big-picture thinker, I like to think of overall strategy rather than minutia, and I have very good body-awareness and dexterity. I'm also pretty good at reading relationships and navigating group situations. When I can use these skills I'm most creative and having the most fun. Some examples include athletics, cross-stitching, I did jig-saw puzzles endlessly as a kid. I loved organic chemistry and fiddling around with the 3D models. I love leadership and teaching and helping others do their best. And I can always orient myself on North/South and East/West planes. When I give directions I focus more on buildings and surroundings and geography then names of streets.

With this aptitudes in mind, I'm more excited than ever that I'm going to be a doctor. I think all of these traits will fit me well in the future. Using my dexterity in something like like surgery (or other hands-on parts of medicine) is really appealing to me. I also really love helping other people in terms of making sure they're informed and understand what's going on. The images and physicality of medicine is really appealing to me.

I hope that I'll hit my sweet spot as a doctor and love it as much as I imagine I will.

Beautiful day at the beach!

Ran to the beach and back, felt great, nice soft running trails, sunny, not too windy. My head is clear, heart is pumping, and love the feeling that permeates my body and soul after a good strong run in the Golden Gate Park...Reading Outliers right now. Incredibly interesting view that success has as much to do with the ecology of a person's life as it does with the intelligence and hard work of that person....

Tomorrow I'm going to shadow Dr. A in the OR doing a double mastectomy.

Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell

Great book. My favorite part about it was the entire chapter devoted to micro expressions and mind/face reading! Just like Lie to Me and my Science of Happiness class! I love it when my reading, tv watching, and academic worlds collide!!!

The use of the word "yet"

I'm still reaping the benefits of Naomi Remen's Kitchen Table Wisdom. There is a great little story about the use of the word "yet". Basically, if you don't know something, or aren't able to do something, most people say things like:

I'm not very good at swimming.
I'm not a doctor.
I don't speak Spanish.
I can't high jump 6 feet.

look at the difference in attitude and framing with the addition of the word "yet" at the end of these 3 sentences:

I'm not very good at swimming yet.
I'm not a doctor yet.
I don't speak Spanish yet.
I can't high jump 6 feet yet.

Yet implies possibility, improvement, and feasibility. I think that Yet is quickly turning into my most favorite 3 letter word ever. For the growth mindset, yet is the perfect word. If you catch me dropping my "yets" off my sentences, please hold me to it!

Mindset, by Carol Dweck

Everyone needs to read this book. Especially teachers and parents.

Basically there are two different mindsets:

Fixed

and

Growth.

This book does an amazing job of explaining the differences, how you can change your frame of mind, gives great examples and really opened my eyes to how empowering having a truly growth mindset can be.

Everyone should read this book.

Howard Engel's The Memory Book

I just finished reading The Memory Book yesterday. It is an excellent detective novel, reminded me how much I love mysteries and miss reading them. Going to change that! What is really cool and unique about this book is that the private investigator Benny Cooperman suffers from alexia sin agraphia, meaning that he has lost his ability to read, but he can still write. Engel does a spectacular job of showing us what this is like, and it really hits close to home for him, considering he suffers from this very rare condition himself. I didn't realize this until I had finished the book and read the back inside cover, it really made me appreciate the novel even more. A must read!

Not-so-comfortable anecdotes

I'm currently reading Kitchen Table Wisdom by Dr. Rachel Remen. It is a wonderful book, very insightful and I love all the stories and morals that come out of everyday people and everyday things.

In one story, Rachel explains how she used to secretly kiss the heads of the infants in the NICU, but then stopped doing so because she was afraid it would seem unprofessional and risky. She concludes with the reflection that, "In some ways, medical training is like a disease, it would take years before I would fully recover from mine"

Another humbling moment of self-reflection comes after she had to tell a mother and father that their baby could not be saved...Here is the excerpt:

"I went to tell these parents that we had not been able to save their child. Overwhelmed, they began to sob. After a time, the father looked at me standing there, strong silent in my white coat, the shaken intern by my side. 'I'm sorry, Doctor,' he said, 'I'll get ahold of myself in a minute." I remember this man, his face wet with a father's tears, and I think of his apology with shame. Convinced by then that my grief was a useless, self-indulgent waste of time, I had made myself into the sort of a person to whom one could apologize for being in pain."

Kitchen Table Wisdom, by Rachel Remen, M.D.

MUST READ: Better, by Atul Gawande

I just finished Atul’s 2nd book, Better. It was excellent, the best-written and insightful book I’ve read in a long time. He centered his stories and discussion on the idea of improvement in medicine –not in terms of new treatments or technologies for disease, but in terms of improving the very systems within which clinicians operate. Every aspiring physician should read this book. His enthusiasm for understanding case studies of when certain physicians were able to make incredible tangible, measurable changes in patient care and outcomes with minor costs is awesome. It really does come down to mindset, and at the final pages, he outlines what he thinks are the most invaluable traits in people, certainly doctors, who are looking to improve outcomes for those they care for, and I will re-iterate them here for everyone, the keys to becoming a positive deviant:

1. Ask an unscripted question
2. Don’t complain
3. Count something
4. Write something
5. Change (Be an early adopter)