Professor Marian Cleeves Diamond, Ph.DI can’t really explain this interest for medicine. It may or it may not come from my being the son of a doctor and a nurse. Or from my boarding school days, a universe of silence and boredom, where the nurses were my only friends, in the sense that they were the only persons who would talk to me. I visited them, way too often, for comfort or company, pretending anything, from headaches to stomach cramps, even fake hernia and pneumonia. I’m amazed they never alerted social services. I’d be curious to know now how they assessed my basket case. It’s certainly during this too long period of my life that I became a card-carrying hypochondriac. This is certainly now that Emi would say, “Don’t go Freudian on me, I’m such an easy target.”
This medical obsession is also replicated in my contemporary cultural life. I live for hospital dramas on TV. Ask me anything about ER, Grey’s Anatomy, The Black Forest Clinic or anything set in a sterilized environment, the characters, the traumas, the science-breaking operations they perform: I have the answers because I’m hooked. I can’t believe I still haven’t seen a single episode of Dr House, but I decided this is a selfish pleasure I will indulge in when comes the long and cold Milanese winter.
Hospital sitcoms and dramas make me regret every time my choice of career. I should have gone to med school. If I could reverse the hands of time, if God had blessed me with a scientific brain, I would have wanted to study medicine. I am convinced I would have made a great Dr. Ross, or Dr. Grey, or Dr Schweitzer… or Dr. Strangelove. Compassionate, caring, altruist Aymo in his white blouse, stethoscope hanging round his neck… Or I could have been an actor in a hospital drama. Hmm, not bad either, the studying is not as intensive.
Last year, while surfing the net, I discovered by pure chance some videos posted on YouTube. These are lectures from the medical school of Berkeley University in San Francisco, CA. There is something great, wonderful about them: you may never have the level to graduate there, but they let you follow the classes. If you are ever interested. I am. Definitely. The course I found and watched was General Human Anatomy (The functional anatomy of the human body as revealed by gross and microscopic examination, Fall 2005) by Professor Marian C. Diamond, who teaches Anatomy at Berkeley Med School. She became my heroine in no time. Watch her here! (This is Lesson 1, Organization of Body.)
I confess that I had my doubts at first: it’s one thing to watch Grey’s Anatomy, it is another to concentrate on a real-life medicine lesson. The woman looks very old, you would never guess she’s a high-flying doctor should you meet her at the check-out at the supermarket. She looks like a pie-making, story-telling, cat-stroking, power-walking suburban grandmother. The way she speaks, the way she looks, everything in her inspire goodness and peace and reassurance. Her name alone speaks for her, she’s a gem. She mesmerizes me. Of what would normally be thought of as arduous and complicated, she makes a passionate lecture.
She belongs to this race of people who could talk about anything and I’d listen without ever yawning. She’s funny, she’s caring, she’s entertaining. But more than anything, she is inspiring, encouraging. She’s the kind of person who gets the be st out of people, just by her sheer personality. Get a teacher like her and you’ll strive for the Nobel prize. She restores my faith in humanity.
Watching those videos (I’m half-way through, it’s still quite an ambitious and challenging program, even if totally understandable for a neophyte like me), I realize how much the education differs in the Anglo-Saxon countries, as compared to the university instruction I received in France. It was certainly academically valuable, but humanly it was Hiroshima. I read law in Paris, with great difficulty. Staff and teachers, contemptuous and unhelpful, seemed to be briefed to discourage students. You need more courage than skills to be a good student in France. Education there is elitist: the survival of the fittest. Have, like me at the time, temporary personal problems, or any issues, and you’re left for dead, and soon it’s too late.
I was thinking of Professor Diamond today, and of the opportunities in life, the ones you grab and the ones you lose, and how sometimes I wonder if life is really about destiny, or is everything purely random?
I’m, like both my parents, a life-long learner. I don’t think I’ll ever stop. I do not boast Ivy-league degrees, indeed I have a university education which is nil when compared to my capacities. Apart form a wonderful woman teacher who taught me British Politics in London for a too short semester, I never had a “Dead poet Society” teacher, or adult, who would have been a great influence, who would have help me put my life on tracks, in the course of my education, or in my awakening to life. I missed that. I miss that!
But now I’m glad I have Professor Diamond in my life. So if you excuse me, I have a “Blood Vascular” lecture to go to!
This medical obsession is also replicated in my contemporary cultural life. I live for hospital dramas on TV. Ask me anything about ER, Grey’s Anatomy, The Black Forest Clinic or anything set in a sterilized environment, the characters, the traumas, the science-breaking operations they perform: I have the answers because I’m hooked. I can’t believe I still haven’t seen a single episode of Dr House, but I decided this is a selfish pleasure I will indulge in when comes the long and cold Milanese winter.
Hospital sitcoms and dramas make me regret every time my choice of career. I should have gone to med school. If I could reverse the hands of time, if God had blessed me with a scientific brain, I would have wanted to study medicine. I am convinced I would have made a great Dr. Ross, or Dr. Grey, or Dr Schweitzer… or Dr. Strangelove. Compassionate, caring, altruist Aymo in his white blouse, stethoscope hanging round his neck… Or I could have been an actor in a hospital drama. Hmm, not bad either, the studying is not as intensive.
Last year, while surfing the net, I discovered by pure chance some videos posted on YouTube. These are lectures from the medical school of Berkeley University in San Francisco, CA. There is something great, wonderful about them: you may never have the level to graduate there, but they let you follow the classes. If you are ever interested. I am. Definitely. The course I found and watched was General Human Anatomy (The functional anatomy of the human body as revealed by gross and microscopic examination, Fall 2005) by Professor Marian C. Diamond, who teaches Anatomy at Berkeley Med School. She became my heroine in no time. Watch her here! (This is Lesson 1, Organization of Body.)
I confess that I had my doubts at first: it’s one thing to watch Grey’s Anatomy, it is another to concentrate on a real-life medicine lesson. The woman looks very old, you would never guess she’s a high-flying doctor should you meet her at the check-out at the supermarket. She looks like a pie-making, story-telling, cat-stroking, power-walking suburban grandmother. The way she speaks, the way she looks, everything in her inspire goodness and peace and reassurance. Her name alone speaks for her, she’s a gem. She mesmerizes me. Of what would normally be thought of as arduous and complicated, she makes a passionate lecture.
She belongs to this race of people who could talk about anything and I’d listen without ever yawning. She’s funny, she’s caring, she’s entertaining. But more than anything, she is inspiring, encouraging. She’s the kind of person who gets the be st out of people, just by her sheer personality. Get a teacher like her and you’ll strive for the Nobel prize. She restores my faith in humanity.
Watching those videos (I’m half-way through, it’s still quite an ambitious and challenging program, even if totally understandable for a neophyte like me), I realize how much the education differs in the Anglo-Saxon countries, as compared to the university instruction I received in France. It was certainly academically valuable, but humanly it was Hiroshima. I read law in Paris, with great difficulty. Staff and teachers, contemptuous and unhelpful, seemed to be briefed to discourage students. You need more courage than skills to be a good student in France. Education there is elitist: the survival of the fittest. Have, like me at the time, temporary personal problems, or any issues, and you’re left for dead, and soon it’s too late.
I was thinking of Professor Diamond today, and of the opportunities in life, the ones you grab and the ones you lose, and how sometimes I wonder if life is really about destiny, or is everything purely random?
I’m, like both my parents, a life-long learner. I don’t think I’ll ever stop. I do not boast Ivy-league degrees, indeed I have a university education which is nil when compared to my capacities. Apart form a wonderful woman teacher who taught me British Politics in London for a too short semester, I never had a “Dead poet Society” teacher, or adult, who would have been a great influence, who would have help me put my life on tracks, in the course of my education, or in my awakening to life. I missed that. I miss that!
But now I’m glad I have Professor Diamond in my life. So if you excuse me, I have a “Blood Vascular” lecture to go to!
1 comments:
Oh I like Pr Diamond !
And I'd love to meet Dr S. :-D
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