Tag: dailyprompt

What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?

I rise between 5 a.m. and 5:30, without an alarm clock, open curtains to assess the weather, get dressed, have a sip of lukewarm coffee made the evening before, go out for a 20 minute walk, regardless of the weather, to think up a starting word for Wordle, come back and try it out out on my iPad, and play the Wordle, then respond to emails and scrabble games with friends, while finishing the coffee. Then try Worldle, the Guess The Country online game. Not very good at the latter. By 7, it is time to check the local obits online to be sure my name is not there.

What’s something most people don’t understand?

There are lots of possible answers to this, but the one that impacted me the most in my former life was the widespread belief that most liver disease is due to alcohol abuse. In my practice, alcoholic liver disease was # 4 in frequency, after nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, autoimmune diseases, congenital diseases in children. And one does not need to consume socially unacceptable amounts of alcohol to develop liver disease if you are susceptible, especially if female.

How has technology changed your job?

I don’t have a regular job, so, in a way, this does not apply to me. But I do a lot of reading and reviewing of books, and now much of my reading is of library books that I borrow on line as either ebooks or audio books.

Who was your most influential teacher? Why?

Dr. GERALD Klatskin of the Yale Liver Study Unit. He only took on two fellows each year, and his door was always open. I could go in at any time of the day, ask a question and he would launch into a long detailed long answer.

You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?

I would go by bike. I once did a 15 day 1500 km bike trip with my son across much of Ontario, and have fond memories of it. We saw all kinds of things you would miss in a car, bus, or train. I also crossed by train from Ontario to Alberta as a teen army cadet (no great memories) and have flown from Ontario to Canada’s east and west coasts many times but never enjoyed flying.

What is one question you hate to be asked? Explain.

Why did you leave a full-time job with the university and hospital to establish a private practice dedicated to hepatology.? The reason was largely because I was frustrated in not getting promoted beyond Associate Professor, (hospital and university politics, personality conflicts, and my wife’s encouragement all played a part) but it was, in retrospect, the best career decision I ever made.

I flew to B.C. To visit dear friends who had moved there. The lady had terminal colon cancer but I was not sure how much she realized about her prognosis. As they said goodbyes at the airport, her husband said he would see me when he came east in the spring. As the lady gave me a big hug, she whispered in my ear “You don’t need to pretend that you will see me again.” I broke down and lied. “Of course I will.”

Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?

Not really. For native-born people patriotism involves a belief that the country you happen to have been born into, something that you had no control over, is the best or at least a good one to live in, whether or not that is true. But if you have moved to a country because of its politics, culture etc, you may have more legitimate reasons to be patriotic. But I am a globalist who believes that people, not borders, are important.