Monthly Archives: March 2022

The ability to do something on demand, whenever it is needed or desired is the ability to actually perform the task in a useful and practical manner. The ability to produce excellent results on command is the difference between performance during practice and performance during the real thing.  There is a difference between being ableContinue reading “On Demand”

During the medical school admissions process, the last step before signing on the dotted line and committing to a specific school for medical training is an event called Second Look. This is an opportunity for prospective medical students to revisit the campus, meet with faculty and current students, ask any questions, and look at theContinue reading “Good System: A reflection”

Throughout the course of the Covid-19 pandemic there has been the constant question of the risk of infecting other individuals after coming down with Covid-19. Is it a specific amount of time? There have been varying times used from >20 days to 14 days to 10 days to 5 days, and in some cases, requestsContinue reading “The Tale of Tails”

Starting is the most difficult part. The first step of the journey is a step into the unknown. The first steps gives birth to all the subsequent steps.  As the proverb from Laozi goes, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  The first step is not a giant leap, nor aContinue reading “Practice Starting”

The basic building blocks of life, the biochemistry that gives rise to cells, to tissues, to organs, to organisms, are shapes and charges. The first portion of this, shapes, are intuitive as modern life is dependent on tangible interactions with geometry on a daily basis. Whether it is arranging shelves in the refrigerator, finding clothesContinue reading “Shapes”

Preparation is critical. As the saying goes, failing to prepare is preparing to fail. This lesson is hardwired into individuals from the time of elementary school on, when projects requiring weeks or months of preparation are assigned with increasing frequency. In the early years of schooling, there is often little agency, a limited amount ofContinue reading “Preparing for Opportunity”

At basketball camp growing up, one of the sayings that was imprinted in every campers’ head was “repetition, the mother of all learning”. At that stage, it was just something that was repeated, rote memorization for the sake of avoiding being yelled at or having to run extra sets of lines. At that time itContinue reading “Repetition”

In Lewis Carroll’s book, Through the Looking Glass, Alice encounters one of the most memorable characters of the books, the Red Queen. The Red Queen is incessantly running but appearing to get nowhere despite her best efforts. Upon inquiring about this peculiar set of circumstances, Alice and the Red Queen have a memorable exchange:  “…inContinue reading “The Red Queen”

Everyone is waiting for normal to return, to go back to the good old days, the times before the pandemic closed down the world, before millions of people had died, when a belief in one’s immortality could still be maintained, when a sense of innocence about the future permeated the present. Since the beginning ofContinue reading “Back To Normal”