It seems that talking about puberty and sex is one of most every doctor’s LEAST favorite tasks. I know that because some research projects have studied the subject in patients of all ages with diseases of all types and by doctors of all specialties.
Well, it shouldn’t really surprise any of you because it’s your least favorite talk with your kids too (assuming you’re a parent)—and they’re YOUR kids.
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I live in no fear that telling you Dr. John Snow is one of history’s top 50 influential doctors will give even the slightest concern.
If it does, it means you really have no clue that he was the one who basically took Cholera off the front page of every newspaper and gave the world toilets, sewer systems and public works departments—world-wide.
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I read an article recently about the many medical breakthroughs the world would have missed if the detractors, naysayers and just plain and simple evil-intentioned haters had their way; and I decided to turn it into an article.
I’ve mentioned nine so far in the previous two parts including: Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis who was basically killed for suggesting his colleagues wash their hands; the vitriol made public by the new fangled internet against Dr. Prusiner over disease caused by proteins; and, the delay in cancer therapy caused by the “good ol’ boy’s.”
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In part one I already confessed to being in a profession full of egos which, like it or not, sometimes get in the way of rational consideration of things new or which are going against long used practices.
And I even asserted that pediatricians don’t have as much trouble with that as other specialists; proposing, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that it was because we were all used to dealing with adolescents whose very body language conveys that every adult around them “just doesn’t have a clue.”
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It’s one thing to live 102 years and witness two generations of medical advancements and still quite another to be the one who made many of those advances!
Further, it’s even more unusual when the Decagenarian set out to do nothing but “be a good doctor” yet ended up with over 750 articles, 12 books and, get this, TWO lifetime achievement awards—why not he saw almost two lifetimes come and go.
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Unfortunately, I’m in a profession where egos flair at the drop of a hat either through overwhelming skepticism, inordinate caution, debilitating fear of being wrong or as yet some unknown neurological or psychiatric condition.
I wish I was smart enough to write a definitive article on that, it would do the world a favor.
But I’m not, so this is not about that; it’s about the unfortunate result of all that—the often adolescent refusal to accept new knowledge when it is presented.
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I’m sorry to say that my profession is no different than others when it comes to E G O! At least it is now.
As pathetic as it sounds, a person’s tolerance or consideration of new information (even the true kind) hangs upon: where or even who it is coming from, how far it departs from what you already think you know, and perhaps even more importantly how the change will effect the ego or pocketbook.
The incredible bodily change during puberty never ceases to amaze me. In this project I have a couple other observations as well.
Frist, I’m a bit envious of the technical skills it took to create such a time-lapse montage. Even the calendar on the wall progresses through the months and years, and I’m positive it’s more than one year.
And second, think of what it must have taken to keep his son’s cooperation through that many years! An incredible joint project through a (normally) difficult time of life for a teen where cooperation through long term projects is hard to come by.
Malaria, smallpox, Polio and some other 30 odd diseases have been controlled by substantial immunization programs — which, it seems, the vaccine-haters didn’t want to happen.
Sitting here in the 21st century, most of us really don’t have a clue how much real suffering humanity has endured in all aspects of their lives since the beginning of time, from malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrhea, influenza… and the list goes on.
Historical evidence reveals that even less than 100 years ago parents were so demoralized by the amount of uncontrollable disease that they were reluctant to even give their newborn infants a name until they had “proven” that they would make it through life for a couple of year! Can we comprehend what that must have been like?
Then there was the spark of hope when Smallpox seemed to be controllable—Polio, Diptheria, Tetanus… all through immunization efforts.
Seth Berkley is an epidemiologist and the CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the global health organization protecting lives by improving access to vaccines in developing countries. [No, they are not pharmaceutical salesmen—they don’t make money from production or sale of immunizations.]
With more than half a billion children immunized, he is leading Gavi’s efforts to reach a further 300 million children in the next five years and build sustainability into country immunization programs.
Prior to Gavi, he spearheaded the development of vaccines for HIV as founder and CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.
Our number 40, of the top 50 most influential doctors in history, is Dr. Lawrence Einhorn who has less written about him on the internet than any of previous 10 we’ve mentioned—even those dating back to nearly the dawn of medicine!
However, he is deserving of at least as many words on the internet as any of the others—he did invent an (almost) cure for testicular cancer after all!
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Here we are, in our discussion about immunization, at the ten reasons parents don’t immunize their children as described by a colleague, Greg Barrett at Ohio State University School of Medicine.
He did something that very few pediatricians these days are willing to do: immerse himself in the wasteful false rhetoric in order to understand the dilemma the patients he cared about were in. This article is for those who are truly looking for answers (Vaccine-haters, this is not for you).
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We’re (by that I mean I and I’m dragging you along with me) trying to make sense of and understand this mess we’re in about immunization; and I’m telling you of how a colleague decided to deliberately immerse himself in the vaccine-hater cottage industry to try and understand how otherwise seemingly rational parents make decisions which are clearly not in the best interest of their children.
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