Right brain approach to healing

(image is a Mercedes-Benz add, taken from http://www.andrewkeir.com/right-brain-vs-left-brain/)

Science is often though of as a left brain thing.  Art is the right brain.  But what happens when you combined them?  What happens when a man with brain cancer begins to think outside the box?  What happens when the man has the ingenuity and skill set to crack code, redefine healing and cure, and appeal to a larger, global, audience?

You have Salvatore Iaconesi.  You have an OPEN SOURCE CURE.  In his poetically beautiful words, here is his plea:

"There are cures for the body, for spirit, for communication.

Grab the information about my disease, if you want, and give me a CURE: create a video, an artwork, a map, a text, a poem, a game, or try to find a solution for my health problem.

Artists, designers, hackers, scientists, doctors, photographers, videomakers, musicians, writers. Anyone can give me a CURE."

This is an absolutely beautiful reinvention of medicine.   This is the art I am proud to be learning, practicing, and bearing witness in the lives of all my patients (past, present, and future).   

The line has been crossed = time to protest!

This political attack on women's bodies and personal medical decisions has gone too damn far.  It is one thing when Mitt Romney takes a stance to defund planed parenthood if elected president; while far from desirable, no one is in immediate danger.  However, it is totally crossing a line when state legislators vote on whether a doctor can straight up lie to his/her patient in order to ensure she doesn't opt for an abortion. 

This all seems way too similar to the ethics lecture I recently heard: "Deadly Medicine in the Nazi Era: What Turned Physician Healers into Killers?" (this article touches on some of the factors that were discussed in the talk).   The idea that doctors are following this moral extremism with disregard for reality, not realizing or not caring that their moral belief is directly harmful to their patients... so damn scary what power and knowledge in the wrong hands can lead to.

Anyhow, I'm more frustrated at the politicians who we are currently paying to sit in office and debate away our right to choice, education, and honesty.   They are wasting our time and our money.  They are degrading women all across America by belittling us into a category of those incapable of thing for our self.  They are putting us at risk for unplanned pregnancies, incomplete healthcare, and clandestine abortions.  They are personally pissing me off!

What can we do about it?  VOTE.  Get these fools out of office.  However the election is a little while away so in the meantime there is a National Protest Against the War on Women being planned for April 28, 2012.  Taken from facebook:

National Protest Against the War on Women
Saturday, April 28, 2012 
10:00am until 2:00pm
State Capitols in all 50 States and DC
Join our organizing page: http://on.fb.me/wBUDYu

Organize your friends and go take a stance!  For the medical students and professional out there, please please please wear your white coat when you do.  It makes a difference for people to see that we're fed up with this BS.

Repeating history

Due to a conversation today on state and federal healthcare spending, which quickly derailed into a conversation about all the issues with the federal budget, I've been thinking a lot about this whole "occupy wall street" thing.  John Stewart's "Parks and Demonstrations" shtick has fueled this thought process.  What if this is the real deal?  Could this be the start of something big?  A slowly growing revolution creating the change that is needed for sustainability and success?

It reminds me of all the stories I heard about the Vietnam era.   Stories of organized dissent, public protesting, empowerment of the younger generation.  These were stories I used to ask my parents to tell me over and over when I was little.  I always found myself a bit disappointed that they had such passive roles, envious of friends' whose parents were at UC Berkley and the such at the time.  They weren't the sit-in hippies or the draft dodging rebels.  They were just run of the mill 20-somethings, doing the best they could to stay on their feet, trying to progress their lives while barring witness to history evolving.

If this is the real deal, I imagine the conversation I will have with my future kid(s), G!d willing!
Kid: Mom, tell me about the wall street take over!
Me: Well, I was a 3rd year medical student at the time, busy on the wards and really out of touch with what was going on...