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Dear all,
One of my seniors in residency passed this article along to us from the NY times. The author describes her struggles with her parents and a medical system ill-equipped to help people live their last days in a fashion in keeping with their beliefs and aspirations. It reminded me of so many of my patients during internship for whom the medical system just refuses to let die a humane and dignified death. In our noble search for cures, we so often do harm to vulnerable people at the ends of their lives. I am also reminded of my dad. He died in his sleep of the sequelae of a condition– congestive heart failure– that doctors could have treated and kept him alive for some time, but living a lifestyle that was not compatible with his spiritual and philosophical beliefs. He refused such a fate. The last year of his life, he continued to run, spend time with us, see patients, and attend conferences on spirituality. We went on an amazing spirituality retreat together just before I started college, two months before he died. That week was a truly blessed, and I will carry it with me for the rest of my life. While it took me, then at 18 years of age, years to forgive him for his rejection of the medical system, at the end of internship and having seen the violence we doctors do to people, I have come to accept and respect his position.

The piece is definitely worth reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20pacemaker-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Matas and Nanis and Dadis out there. In honor of the magic of twos on our twins’ second birthday, we thought we’d put together a small joint tribute together to celebrate our own two special mothers and grandmothers. Many blessings and thanks to all the mothers in our lives.
Love,
Duncan, Sheela, Anand, Umed

The path to achieving greatness in track and field begins in the womb.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/02/qa_turok?currentPage=1

the physicist himself strongly states that we shouldn’t look for religious or metaphorical meanings in the material observations and hypotheses of science, but one can’t help but draw comparisons with the teachings of Jainism…