Metaphors in medicine, and a night hike in the desert by blogger of the month Jessie Seiler

We know that the heart is one of the simplest medical metaphors we encounter. It rushes in excitement, it skips beats in anticipation, and it nestles beneath our right hand as we make pledges and promises. So the metaphor’s pretty good, really. But your heart pumps blood, not feelings. It’s lumpy, but not in the way you used to draw it as a child. It stops and starts, but those events aren’t romantic in real life.

I haven’t always been a fan of metaphors. They feel like a way of smoothing over the details that don’t match your personal view of whatever you’re describing. They’re tiny lies, lazy shorthand, and so easily nothing more than clichés.

And isn’t it weird that so many metaphors are attached to our bodies? After all, we’ve all got a body. Why aren’t they easier to describe to each other?

But metaphors are useful, and I wasn’t surprised when we encountered some other medical metaphors during our first full week of classes. Our first immunology class was full of them, and they were pretty helpful. Everything has a character. The helper T cells are sneaky and manipulative, not killing infected cells themselves, but rather directing the actions of others. B and T cells have long memories, remembering old wounds and infections and fighting them off more robustly each time they sense them crossing our borders. And in autoimmune disorders, the whole finely tuned immune mechanism turns upon the body it is otherwise perfectly suited to love and protect.

My discomfort with metaphors aside, I like describing the world, thinking about it, and sharing it with other people. Which means that metaphors are a part of my life.

Speaking of which, we went on a night hike on the Thursday evening following our first full week of classes. About 45 minutes south of Beer Sheva is the small desert town of Sde Boker, famous for being the retirement spot of choice for David Ben-Gurion. Even to an outsider who knows little about Israel, the community is obviously built around a powerful idea: the metaphor of life in the desert. 

Ben-Gurion saw the appeal of the metaphor himself:

“The desert provides us with the best opportunity to begin again. This is a vital element of our renaissance in Israel. For it is in mastering nature that man learns to control himself. It is in this sense, more practical than mystic, that I define our Redemption on this land.”

More practical than mystic in its conception, maybe. But you get a healthy dose of the mystic, too, standing at the edge of the canyon’s cliffs as the moon rises, listening to the wind shearing through the river valley below.

We waited until full darkness to take advantage of the almost-full moon, bringing our headlamps with us to shine light on only the most precarious stretches of the path. We stopped once to visit a water reservoir that our guide claimed was over 2,400 years old, and again to gaze at an unremarkable bush. Young men would pluck a supple branch of this bush, tie it in a knotted circle, and leave it for their beloved to find. If she enjoyed his attentions, she would return it to him with the bow untied; if not, she’d leave it where she found it.  Metaphors, again.

The rock walls of the canyon were warm after the long, hot day, but the air was chill and refreshing. Our guide told us about the flash floods here, though you can tell just by looking around that the water comes through hard and fast. Nothing here is in a straight line: curves and dips and valleys are everywhere. We walked on and on, speaking sometimes and sometimes in silence, on a path lit by the moon and our trust in our guide.

After a couple of hours, we stopped once more to scramble up a rocky hill off the path for a higher view. I decided to stay on the main path, since my feet were being gross and sweaty, which made my Tevas a little slippery on steep inclines like this one. My classmates ditched their bags next to me, and I stretched out on the sand to sip water and wait.

As they climbed away, I thought about the body and its metaphors.

How happy I am, to have legs that swing out and land steadily, bringing me to new places by strange routes: skin that shields me and warms up pink in the sun, a barrier with a perfect combination of protection and permissiveness: arms that embrace and lift and reach, always up and out: a brain with a will to learn and to seek adventure, to descend these moonlit canyon walls and scale them again.

How happy I am, to have a heart that beats calmly as I hear my classmates shuffle up the rocks, that relaxes and slows into the fresh silence as my back might relax into a good stretch, and that springs high with happiness to hear my friends returning just a few minutes later. It pumps blood, and it pumps feelings. The metaphor is true.

How happy I am, to have metaphors for the feeling of having a body, the experience of health, and the path of medical education. 

It's nice to know that we always have the beach and each other, by blogger of the month Shauna Dunton

This will be my final post as blogger of the month, and it will touch upon a common theme in all of my posts which is that the best thing about MSIH is really the people. The best advice I can give to the entering class next year is that your best resource is each other.  The students in your class and also in other years of MSIH truly have your back and want to see you succeed and constantly work towards making changes in order for everyone to have a better, more effective education and experience at MSIH. I took a long road to medical school and I have seen many other educational systems along the way and I can assure you this is a unique feature of this school.

We have just finished a tough month of finals and have already begun Endocrinology, which is our sole focus for the next month. I can pretty much speak for all of us in saying that we are excited to be starting systems and can’t wait to see what the next year brings.

A big group of us went to Palmachin beach, just south of Tel Aviv, to go camping and get some sun and relaxation in before we started our next class. The weekend was complete with shesh beish, football, a nice fire, human pyramids and an unexpected private fireworks show put on by other campers on the beach. It’s nice to know that we always have the beach and each other. - blogger of the month, Shauna Dunton

Diligent students....a few lessons for the incoming class, by Virginia Byron

Diligent students

A few shots of our first year to prove that we actually did study and sometimes even enjoyed it! Just look at all those beautiful smiles. Plus a few lessons for the incoming class… 

At left, Dani multitasking at the climbing gym on a chilly day. Lessons: Pack some warm clothes and always have a study buddy on hand to assist with your [unconventional] learning needs.

Max leading a cell bio review session. Lesson: Carry a colorful array of whiteboard markers at all times.

Alex and Joy W. perform a dialogue in Hebrew class. Lesson: This may look daunting to you first years, because it is. But it always helps to have a friend nearby to whisper the right words in your ear.

 Joy and Josh debate Reva and Kristie in Global Health Class. Lesson: Always look interested if you are sitting in the front row.

 Amit and Alex assist Prof. Clay Davis in a demonstration of the Holliday Junction. Lesson: Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish recombination from a maypole dance.

  

Dan is excited to find an unnamed classmate’s throat culture aggressively catalase positive. Lesson: You never know what med students will find interesting.

Kristie and Dani hard at work over brunch. Lesson: Warm crusty bread and Turkish coffee are the best study aides.

Amit elated after donning his white coat for the first time before microbiology lab. Lesson: Even the little things are worth skipping for.

Neighborhood Global Health, by Esther Lee, blogger of the month

Right before our Succoth break we had “Intro to Anthro to Global Health and Medicine”, an introductory course for the global health modules we will be taking the rest of our time here. For three days we listened, learned, debated, talked over each other, asked pointed questions, and got the importance of timeliness drilled into us (one of our first encounters with Dr. Seema Biswas was her not-so-subtly reprimanding us for not being on time, which means being early, to lecture).

I think, for most of us, we felt. We felt the pangs of our current situation: listening to lectures about healthcare inequalities, economic power plays in developing countries, political tensions that get in the way of appropriate healthcare – all while sitting in a nice, air-conditioned auditorium at Ben Gurion. I felt drawn to jump into the action now, even though I felt like I little to offer as a student.

When will we be able to treat patients, regardless of race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, citizenship, or cultural barriers? When will we be able to apply our global health head knowledge to real situations, not just with role-playing classmates and hypothetical scenarios?

I walked home after the last Global Health lecture with my earphones jammed in, feeling the hot afternoon sun on the back of my neck. I was really looking forward to the ten days off for Succoth.

“Excuse me, do you have Acamol?” a petite lady wearing a baggy sweater with dusty leather sandals, waved her hand in my face to get my attention.

To tell you the truth, I was going to ignore her. I had almost a million errands to run before getting on a train to start my “Sea to Sea hike” (must do before graduating! High chance of photos in next blog). I was mentally exhausted from the last three days of Global Health. And, it was really, really hot.

I tugged my earphones out.

“What’s Acamol?”  She gave me a look of disbelief -  rightly so, as it’s one of the most common medicines in Israel [Israeli brand of Paracetamol, I had to look it up to write this] - then patiently explained, by pointing to her temple, that she has a headache and that Acamol makes it go away.

I have to admit something else -  I had Tylenol with me that I could give to her and go on my way, but after three days of Global Health I couldn’t do it with a clean conscience.

I asked her why she doesn’t have it with her, after all, it’s a common painkiller and we live in a city - there’s sure to be a pharmacy in our neighborhood. But what about the socioeconomic factors unique to her life? Can she afford the medication? Is the pharmacy close to her home? Is she physically capable of walking there alone even if she could afford it? Does someone have to take her? Or is it something in her diet and lifestyle that is triggering her headaches? (Global Health has influenced even my small-talk skills).

I discovered that she has the money, but not a lot; she doesn’t know where the nearest pharmacy is; she would be grateful if I went to the pharmacy and got them for her (I asked); her stash of Acamol that her doctor prescribed is all gone and that she can’t go to her doctor again alone because of her some hidden complexity in her insurance plan.

We talked for over half an hour in the Beersheva heat on the side of the street. I watched her face lit up as she talked about her childhood in Poland and immigrating to Israel. She mentioned the difficulty of moving to the Negev as a young wife with four babies. And how she misses her old home she lived with her husband, the one with the spacious front patio, the one that her children made her sell to come live with them in dusty and crowded city.

She wasn’t asking me for medicine. She was asking me for things that money can’t buy. Time, sincerity, someone who could look her in the eyes and listen to her.  She also wasn’t just an old lady on the verge of losing her mind, looking for someone to listen to her ramble.

When I asked her if she drank enough water, or if she drank tea or coffee (triggers of headaches), she gave me a wide mischievous smile and told me she couldn’t live without her morning cup of joy. We high-fived in whole-hearted agreement (but I didn’t forget to remind her to drink water afterwards).

And, when I asked her if she cooks and what she eats at home, she gave me a look as if she knew what I was getting at – I was hoping to subtly check for a hint of elderly abuse since she is a widower

with one of her children - and answered that she loves Italian food and that an organization brings homemade cooking to her house sometimes. Her sweet, smug grin lingered in the air between us.

We didn’t talk about Acamol again, or the headache. (She reminded me how much she misses her patio throughout the whole conversation). We finally exchanged names. She asked about me, and when I told her I was studying medicine she told me that it is a worthy pursuit. She told me the next time she sees me, she’ll greet me properly with, “Hi Doc!”

“Don’t give up, never” she told me as we parted ways. She’s right. This road that we’ve chosen is lengthy, tedious, and is terrible for our social lives. Sometimes we doubt our decision to come study medicine in a foreign country. I know I’ve had my bouts of gripping fear and uncertainty in being here. But we’re here for a reason, and I believe that the more committed we are to being fully here and the more willing we are to set our roots down in this desert, we’ll see the little reasons of why we came to Israel.

I think the encounter with Anette* was a small answer to why I came here.  I’m here not only to study medicine through a global perspective, but also to practice loving the people, culture, and context, wherever I happen to me. I’m realizing that sometimes we put down roots through unexpected ways.

Now that we’re here, we are doing all it takes to keep going, to keep pushing our lonely roots down in the dry, cracked soil. We must remember that we’re here for a reason.  So whether studying bacteriology, lysosomal storage diseases, or drawing out biochemical pathways for the tenth time, or filling out medical school essays, interviewing, and playing the waiting game - Don’t give up, never. We’re in this journey for a reason greater than we are.   - Esther Lee, blogger of the month

*Pseudonym

Some pictures of the sea to sea hike! Started on the Mediterranean, from the coastal city of Nahariya.

We spent the first day walking through a nature reserve park. The stream crossings kept us from getting too hot.

Walking through valleys and looking up at mountains makes one feel appropriately small and humble.

Sleeping on the shore of the Yam Kineret (Sea of Galilee) after 4 days and ~ 60km and waking up to a striking sunrise was an appropriate way to end our hike.

And so it was chosen, by blogger of the month Elon Richman

That 38 medical students from around the world would come to the cradle of civilization (ish) to study the world’s most amazing field. Flavors from South Korea, Philippines, Canada, USA, Taiwan, and lets not forget Nigeria, just made the diverse melting pot of Israel that much spicier. The group is mixing, juices are flowing and we’ve so much left to know of each other.

My Israeli experience is quite different from that of my peers. I’ve grown up coming here, am familiar with the culture and have been to the ends of the country on multiple occasions. But, like most tourists who come to visit Israel, Be’er Sheva was easily skipped.

After spending the last two months working in a coffee house in Tel Aviv, Be’er Sheva actually became a welcome change from the hectic honks and hoots of a cosmopolitan metropolis (much to the surprise of my friends who asked “Why the hell are you leaving the beach?!) Yet, I moved because I sought experience; I sought change. So far, Be’er Sheva has delivered with its shuks, charming old city and incredibly diverse immigrant population.

Even better, though, is the student experience.

This isn’t your average medical school. I chose MSIH because it offers a gateway to meeting fascinating and curious people who are interested in more than your run of the mill medical school experience. We have a kung fu master, paratrooper (who’s afraid of heights), salsa dancers, foodies, hikers, swimmers, bikers, spiritual guides, travelers... You get the idea.

This diversity of interest, however, doesn’t strike me as the most amazing quality of our class: everyone here is unique, but in the most welcoming and accepting way possible. There’s no intimidation from the incredible tales of our classmates and since the start of our orientation sessions, our class of 38 has been in each other’s company. We’ve had fun in the sun, dined in ancient streets, danced, explored and engaged in learning ancient language. And if you’re looking for challenges, we have people ready to face them with you.

Luckily, there are simple answers to all of your Be’er Sheva problems!

Are the chickens waking you up at 6:00 am?

YOU CHOSE THIS

Did the falafel stand on Bialik give you diarrhea last night?

YOU CHOSE THIS

Coca Again?!

YOU CHOSE THIS

I couldn't possibly go on another apartment tour.

YOU CHOSE THIS

להזיז מהדרך האמריקנים משוגעים!

YOU CHOSE THIS

Who’s the real sociopath! (ahem)

YOU CHOSE THIS

...but wait.

Have you met interesting people from around the world?

YOU CHOSE THIS

Have you started feeling that Israeli spirit?

YOU CHOSE THIS

Are you as excited as everyone else for these next four years?

YOU CHOSE THIS

We journeyed from around the world, but we’re here now. The path ahead is laid with bricks of uncertainty, but I look forward to continuing this great energy as we start a thrilling and dramatic year of knowledge, culture and love of life.

So let me ask you one thing: How can I global help you?

Naaaaaiiiiimmmm Meeeeeoooooddd,

- blogger of the month Elon Richman

Waiting well, by blogger of the month Jonathan Ditty

Soon after my lovely wife and I moved into our apartment last August, there was an unexpected knock at the door. I had been in Hebrew class for a few weeks at that point so I figured that I could manage to communicate something with whoever it was, maybe. As I opened the door, I saw an elderly man standing with a leather briefcase. We stared at each other for a second and then he said something to me in Hebrew. As I have often done in this country, I picked up one word and thought I understood the whole sentence. I heard the word “rofae” (doctor) and somehow (I don’t quite know how) I put together a whole story in my head that the man was looking for a doctor. He must have found out that I was studying medicine and assumed that I could provide him some medical assistance. Somewhat flattered, I decided that I had to tell him the truth. I quickly went through some Hebrew charts in my head and muttered out, “ani lo rofae” (I am not a doctor). The look on his face told me that he was not surprised, and clearly I had misunderstood him. Through gestures and some more Hebrew (which I mostly pretended to understand) I realized that he was a doctor making a house call and simply had the wrong apartment number. Embarrassed on all accounts I retreated to my wonderful wife and a homemade iced café (the most profitable use of instant coffee in the summer: just add sugar, water, milk, and ice cubes. Bam! Iced café).

Not as good as the real thing, but a smart way to spend borrowed shekels

One of the most difficult things about the first year of medical school is waiting. Of course it’s reasonable and necessary to learn how to do medicine before jumping in there and getting your hands dirty (or bloody). But at least for me, the beginning of this year felt like putting on the brakes big time. I came into medical school ready to start saving people’s lives and quickly realized that I would have to wait a while. I did get the chance to save a few dummies in the Emergency Medicine summer course and got to bloody up my IV partner a little, but otherwise I have been in the business of learning. The days are long, the books are many, and Firecracker doesn’t do itself (see http://www.firecracker.me/for details). There is a lot to learn, sometimes it feels endless, and really it can be quite disheartening to an ambitious first year ready to change the world.

There are a couple ways to deal with these “brakes” as it were. The less ideal way (of which I am a veteran) is to bewail, moan, and blame the system. In my experience, this was often accompanied with long nights complaining to my sympathetic wife. In the end, this way kept me paralyzed from doing anything (like those dummies from the Emergency Medicine course).

The more ideal way (of which I am a rookie, maybe just getting off the bench) is to find opportunities in which you can serve the community around you. Now except for very special circumstances (Jeremy on the plane), you probably won’t be saving people’s lives. But you might very well be helping to improve someone’s life in a small way during your first year of medical school. A few examples from our first year class: shadowing doctors in Soroka, Tel Aviv refugee clinics, and PHR in the West Bank, teaching English or Spanish at local schools, supporting Beersheva families with chronic diseases (Global Health Made Local), helping out families in your church or synagogue, spending time with the elderly in retirement homes, etc. (really there are many more).

The waiting is still hard, and sometimes you might want to think that the guy knocking on your door is looking for a doctor, but take heart, drink some iced café, and wait well during your first year. - blogger of the month, Jonathan Ditty

Petra for Pesach, by blogger of the month Angel Eads

It’s hard to believe that it’s already the beginning of April and that our second semester is drawing to a close.   My classmates and I are returning to school today after a ten day break thanks to Pesach.  We have 2 more weeks of classes, another virology quiz and then a month of final exams. 

I spent part of my Pesach vacation catching up on studies (ask me anything about a parasite, I won’t know the answer, but I will shudder involuntarily) and taking care of other pesky chores like taxes and filing my FAFSA for next year.  However I also had the opportunity, along with 3 MSIH friends, to travel to Petra and Wadi Rum in Jordan.  

I don’t want to spend my entire stint as MSIH first year blogger forcing strangers to look at my vacation pictures.  However, when considering blog topics, travelling to another country seemed much more interesting than tales of flipping through Microbiology cards and falling asleep on my Pharmacology textbook (in the middle of the day, while sitting at my desk, because it’s just that fascinating).*

These travel stories also represent to me one of the most unique things about MSIH.   When I decided to go back to school I asked a friend for advice.  She had just completed a particularly demanding MFA program and suggested that I choose the years of my life that I didn’t want to be there for and devote those to graduate school.

My friend was joking, but when considering medical schools, I spent a lot of time wrestling with her humorous advice.  I knew I wanted to pursue international health, work with the underserved and see as much of the world as possible, and the idea of putting my life on hold for four years while I acquired necessary skills seemed wholly unpalatable.    It also didn’t make sense, from an educational standpoint, to spend four years learning the art of healing in a setting completely divorced from the context in which I wanted to practice it.  

In one sense, going to medical school here is a lot like going to medical school anywhere else.  Classes and studying take up most of our time, and most of our lectures aren’t related to global health.  They are the same classes you get at medical schools in the states.  This education is obviously necessary and hugely important.  It teaches us what we need to know so that we can become the doctors we want to be.  However, I have sometimes wondered why I moved halfway around the world, far away from family and friends, to sit at a desk and read the same textbooks I would be reading in the US.     

Our curriculum does provide global health opportunities.  Global health modules let us focus on particular topics we are interested in and clinical days bring us into contact with a diverse group of people, ranging from children at a cross cultural elementary school, to Holocaust survivors, to the local Bedouin population. 

However, in my experience, our curriculum is not really what defines our global health education. The real education happens in the spaces in between medical studies.  Whether we are teaching English in a Bedouin village, volunteering at the refugee clinics in Tel Aviv, experiencing the helplessness that comes with learning a new language and culture, or simply taking some time to travel and explore the corner of the world that we have found ourselves in, we have many opportunities to experience new things, meet new people and do life (the literal translation of the Hebrew phrase ose chaim, which means “have fun”).

During our Pesach trip, my classmates and I spent a day and a half exploring the spectacular ruins of Petra.  We went on an afternoon tour of the nature preserve of Wadi Rum, rode camels through the desert and ate a meal under the stars that was cooked in sand.    We had fun, did life and came back to Israel refreshed, ready to tackle classes and final exams.

Living here is not always perfect.   In fact, there are times when it can be downright awful.   The process of cultural adjustment, paired with the extreme pressure of medical education, can be difficult and discouraging.  I miss family, friends and the comfortable, familiar life that I had in the states.   But I also get to learn medicine, see some amazing places and have a pretty great time in the process.  

Besides, if you have to learn about larvae that live in your eyeball (Your.  Eyeball. People.  You can apparently feel them crawling around in there.), the place to do it is on the balcony of a Wadi Musa hotel after a day hiking around one of the seven new wonders of a world that’s basically filled with wonderful things.  - blogger of the month, Angel Eads

* Pharmacology really is interesting.  I promise.  My falling asleep has more to do with my being narcoleptic.**

**I’m not actually narcoleptic, at least not in the diagnosed, medical disease sense of the word.   I just really like to sleep.

At the museum under our noses, by Seth Morrison

History of Medicine museum, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University 

It is quite remarkable what a medical student can learn simply by walking through the corridors of the BGU-MSIH medical school campus. There, a wealth of medical historical knowledge has been built into the very walls of its interior spaces. Thus, it is really an effortless undertaking for any medical student with a curiosity to understand the origins of their profession to simply walk and read through these exhibits. A total of an hour or two spent perusing them is sufficient to attain the beginnings of a well-rounded medical historical education from ancient times to the modern era. It was with this intention that I purposefully took to these corridors one day to see what I could find, and what follows here is an account of my findings.

The ancient Egyptians practiced a form of medicine in keeping with their mythology, incorporating various rituals surrounding their deities into their treatments. There are many different unique remedies that were used on patients, including hippopotamus fat and human excrement. The Nile dwellers also acquired more knowledge of bodily organs than other contemporary civilizations due to their routine procedure of embalming the deceased.

Medicine in biblical times drew on the religious traditions in the Bible and Talmud. The Hebraic practice of medicine was fascinated with life and death, a result of the veneration of mankind imbued by its creation in the image of God. The basis of Hebraic treatment was mainly social and personal hygiene: 213 out of the 613 mitzvot (precepts of God) are related to health in some fashion. Some of the surviving rabbinic texts, like the Mishnah, reveal a stark similarity of issues to the ethics of modern medicine in the polis: the rabbi criticized physicians for over-commercialization of their services and failure to attend to the poor, and drew a hard line by saying that refusal to attend to the poor is tantamount to homicide.

The basis of Greco-Roman medicine was Galen’s Four Humors. A “humor” is not a joke or jest, but the term applied to a bodily fluid. On their account, an imbalance of these humors was the etiology behind every disease, and they determined each person’s temperament: either melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic, or choleric. Additionally, Hippocrates was the leader of a rationalist school of medical thought in Rome, and the Hippocratic corpus descends to us from this period. This corpus, we know, provides the ethical foundations for our modern practice of medicine in the West. And have you ever wondered where the medical symbol of a serpent wrapped around a staff derives from? It comes from the myth of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, who apparently carried such a staff.

Medicine in the Islamic world was also heavily influenced by Galen and the Roman rationalist school. The best hospitals in the world during the Middle Ages were said to be in Cairo, Baghdad, and Damascus. Many brilliant thinkers emerged from the Islamic world. Rhazes (d. 925) wrote the first accurate clinical description of measles and smallpox. Avicenna first suggested the contagious nature of tuberculosis. Maimonides, a prominent Jewish philosopher and physician, was a physician in the court of Saladin in Cairo in the late 12^th century and his fame extended into every great civilization of the time.

In medieval medicine, the term “physicus” began being applied to the academic doctors who philosophized about medicine more than they spent time treating people. Galen’s theory of humorism remained the dominant one, although there were many elements of folk medicine brought into the mix during this period. Observation of the characteristics of urine was the primary diagnostic test, and bloodletting was used as a treatment for a variety of ailments. Many odd elixirs, balms, tinctures, tonics, pills, and potions were given to patients to take, one of the most common being theriac, which had a long list of ingredients including viper flesh. Medieval doctors were not known for their effectiveness in healing. In fact, they were often derided for their impotence in jokes like this medieval poem:

Said time to the fool, be a physician,

and kill people for their riches.

You will have an advantage over the angels of death,

for they kill mankind for free.

This history may seem dry to some, but meaning always follows from reflection. It is given here merely to consider that there are many things to discover about the medicine of the past, and understanding where we came from is not a trivial pursuit. In reading these exhibits and inspecting their historical artifacts, I was reminded of the Hunterian anatomical gallery at the University of Glasgow and seeing its cadaverous collection of centuries-old anatomical specimens. It was there that I first became interested in the early roots of modern medicine.

In the end, it is unlikely that any hospital department head or patient of mine will ever be dissatisfied with me as a physician if I don’t know something about Vesalius or Boerhaave, Galen or Willis, Harvey or Hunter. Nevertheless, even though these things are inessential, I would think myself to be missing something vital if I was completely oblivious to the fact that, as Newton admitted, “if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”   - blogger of the month, Seth Morrison

for more information on the MSIH, visit our website at http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/bgcu-md