The Butcher Shop

So, now, we've got three Emils.  What is it with that name?  And where is the accent? And how do you get "Tom" out of Emil?

This is the screening trials section. Again, a test writer's dream.  Content that involves a list of criteria always turns itself easily into a multiple choice question.  It usually sounds something like, "All of the following are criteria of Zubrod's clinical trial protocol EXCEPT..."  I think "Zubrod" sounds like one of those names of drugs that are advertised on TV for acid reflux or allergies....the commercials where they list every possible horrific possible side effect....

And remember how I told you to pay attention to Carla's list of drugs, and that it would serve as a transition to the content of the next section?  Like this..."To thwart this resistance, doctors treating TB had used a blitzkrieg of antibiotics--two or three used together like a dense pharmaceutical blanket meant to smother all cell division and stave off bacterial resistance, thus extinguishing the infection as definitively as possible" (132).

That second quotation from Michael La Combe at the start of this section reminds me of Dr. Chung.  Some of you may know his daughter, Chloe, who graduated from Northern last year.  In the past two years, I have found myself in Dr. Chung's office more times than I ever dreamed I would be or wanted to be.  First, with Ms. Engelhardt and then, with my mom, who was diagnosed with Lymphoma last year (from which she has been "cured").  This drama, that LaCombe describes, it's there when one meets with Dr. Chung.  "Attentive, alert and ready" describes him perfectly.  At what felt like the end of my last meeting with him a few weeks ago with Ms. Engelhardt, I thought it was time for him to dismiss us.  Instead, he just sat and waited.  He waited for us to process all of the information we had taken in.  Even though we had already asked a dozen or more questions, he knew there were more to come as we worked over his message in our brains.  He waited and waited.  He waited so long that I noticed him waiting. I identified why he was waiting.  And I was touched by his patience.  I mean, he's kind of a big deal.  Not that that gives anyone permission to be less than "attentive, alert and ready", but he was noticeably so.  And, obligingly so. I'm thinking that Mukherjee's description of Frei matches the manner of Dr. Chung.

A while after our meeting with Dr. Chung, I found an article about Narrative Medicine which is a program of study and, as you can well imagine, has all sorts of relevance for us as AP Langers. I'll share it with you in the fall.