faculty sabbatical program
Tuesday, January 2, 2024 “It all needed something more than swagger, something more knowing than a thoughtless reach for the great golden ring. It needed something else.” — Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff
furniture, and these people are taking humans apart, refastening them, and putting them back together. Part mechanic, part sculptor, with no signs of doubt or second-guessing. Single minded … focused … clinical … surgical … I have a new appreciation for those adjectives … “clinical” … “surgical.” I mean I’ve always understood what they meant as well as their etymology … I was an English major after all. The way of looking at situations and the world with precision and free of emotion. I even understand its relationship to the world of medicine, where everything needs to be precise … I can wrap my head around that. It makes sense, even in the abstract. But observing the work of the surgery teams, the words become more powerful. Concrete. It’s like my previous understanding of these words are jacked up on steroids …. clinical … surgical …. But I still wonder. Here’s a kid who wants to play soccer … ride a bike … walk to school … run down the street, or meet a friend. How does a doctor separate the patient’s body from the patient’s Life? Family? Past? Future? From the patient’s Soul? How can
“A man’s gotta know his limitations.” — Harry Callahan Magnum Force
As a layman, it’s hard to comprehend what I can only label as the extreme confidence of the people in the O.R. To slice through skin, muscle, tendon, ligament, saw through bone … to see the connections and inner workings of the human body, and understand how it all fits together … how it can be taken apart … reworked … put back together again. To have a backstage pass and work stage crew for the most intricate show on Earth. There is a humbling level of nerve on display that has somehow eluded me. I get nervous changing the batteries in my TV remote. I’m terrified of losing the screws when I’m putting together IKEA
24 | cathedral school for boys
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