Don's Blog "The Quandary of Technology" 1-28-26

On this cold winter's day here is my editorial in Missouri Medicine from November of 1991. It is less

timeless than some of my editorials but the issue of addressing new technology remains. Where will AI fit in?

Don's Blog Snowfall

In these days of storm and turmoil take 4 minutes to relax. The mirror neurons in your brain will
match what you are hearing and you will experience peace.

Don's Blog "Waking Up" 1-21-26

Here is my editorial from Missouri Medicine from October 1991, 35 years ago. This is best read on a computer.

Editors Note. When I was 9 years old in La Grange, Illinois I  would attend the Sunday Evening Club 

in the winter months with my family, two older brothers and my parents. The programs were presented in my high school auditorium just across the the railroad tracks from our home.One of the programs was breathtaking an unforgettable. Two canoeists described their white water canoe adventure on a the Canadian arctic river which to me was permanently captivating. They showed slides and amazing movies. I can see one of the movies even now in my head. I wanted to do that. 

Somehow that dream was replaced by my life as a student, competitive tennis player, amateur backpacker and mountaineer and family man and head and neck surgeon. During the Viet Nam War era I was stationed in Anchorage Alaska with my wife and two young sons. I fell in love with the far north. At age 13 my oldest son went to scout camp in Ely Minnesota where he learned to canoe. He never really ever came home. After college he canoed the length of the Mississippi river from Lake Itaska to the gulf. Save for a few Covid years he has taken or led canoe expeditions on white water rivers in the Canadian arctic every summer. 

It was at that point that he invited me my the first arctic canoe expedition. I had never really forgotten the Sunday Evening program and that yearning to do that adventure myself. The Caribou River expedition described above was the first of nine expeditions to the far north. Arctic fever can be serious. Eight of my trips were paddling on arctic rivers and  saw me traveling downriver going north through 'The Land' and finishing on the arctic ocean. The last trip was a voyage on a small cruise ship with other adventurous elders that started in Greenland, went  across the North West Passage and ended in Nome Alaska. I got to see 'The Land'  from the ocean side and got to visit some of the sites where my canoe trips had ended. What privilege to fulfill a dream.

Don's Blog The Wall 1-14-26

Here is my editorial from Missouri Medicine from November 1992. In the  rereading I am still there.

Don's Blog "Another Poem of Gifts" 1-8-26

Here is another poem by  Jorge Luis Borges from my friend Katy. What else do you have to do but read it?

Another Poem of Gifts  Frances Haslam was Borges's English grandmother.

Don's Blog 'Being In Country' 1-1-26

Happy New Year. I look forward to each new year with great enthusiasm. There is nothing I do to create this energy. 

It is a way of being that I inherited from my mother for which I am more than grateful.

For the last several years or more during the winter when nature is resting I have been sharing articles that I wrote

as Editor of Missouri Medicine. My editorials were not about reacting to the intrusion of the government and other third parties between doctors and their patients and the resultant chaos. The articles addressed what it was to be a physician in these times including the joy of caring for patients but also how it is to BE a physician at the human level where life is authentically lived. Here is my editorial from June of 1991, the 58th such article I have shared.

Not much has changed in the ensuing 35 years except that being retired allows me to be on the trail every day

as I answer the 'ancient' call.