Broken Promises

A long long time ago I promised you regular posting. I promised you a whole series on my thoughts about passion. I promised to start writing seriously. I promised I would make my life more interesting, more meaningful. I promised I would do things on purpose.

I haven't done any of these things.

I have no excuses. I accept full responsibility for my rubbishness.

But I'm not going to complain (much). I'm getting up, dusting myself off, and moving on.

A Log and a Speck

So umm, I haven't posted anything on my blog for 7 1/2 months now.

To be honest what's brought me back to here is the fact that I've recently been nagging a friend of mine to post on his blog more often. You see, he started a blog at the beginning of this year saying that he would post every week until the end of 2011 and as soon as it lapsed for a few weeks I let him know it. If only he knew....

Anyway, I wouldn't say this guy isn't a particularly close friend of mine. However, through reading his blog, which sometimes becomes quite personal, I (feel like I) have gained an insight into some parts of his life that I doubt I would have known about from our sporadic conversations. I feel like a fly on the wall silently observing him - well, the parts he chooses to share online anyway. I feel privileged to know these things - like he has confided in me specially, which is rather ironic considering that a weblog is anything but confidential. I am also a little in awe and humbled by his display of openness, honesty and vulnerability. Bizarrely , I feel like I can't really speak to him about the personal matters that he puts on his blog. It feels like I'm cheating at friendship, or that I'm reading his mind.

My eagerness to correct his 'log' has prompted me to re-examine my 'speck' of cyberspace. Looking back on this, it looks like a failure - a confused, self-indulgent and unfinished diary.
But every grey cloud has a silver lining. I firmly believe that life is a journey and not a destination. There is something to be learned from everything that happens.
I like writing, so I think I will carry on.

InspireMe - Quotes

I love inspirational quotes.

You know the ones, those famous adages or sayings that say so much in just a few words. These are my favourites that used to live on my facebook profile. They also say a lot about my life philosophy.

Medicine is the only profession that labours incessantly to destroy the reason for its own existence ~James Bryce, 1914

If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves

~Thomas Eddison

Smile awhile and while you smile another smiles and soon there's miles and miles of smiles and life's worthwhile because you smile ~ St. Cecilia

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever ~ Mahatma Gandhi

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb ~ Nelson Mandela

What are your favourite quotes? And why do you love them? Sharing is caring, leave yours in the comments below :)

To be a good surgeon... it's a good idea to play some sort of video game

A quick PubMed search reveals there are at least 53 publications relating to the topic of video games and surgical skill development.

In a very recent review article (Lynch et al, 2010) 12 research papers were discovered relating to different kinds of keyhole and robotic surgery on different parts of the body.  The findings from all of these papers were analysed and it was found that there was a link between gaming and increased performance in keyhole but not robotic surgery. The increased performance was only seen in basic tasks. For more complex tasks and in robotic surgery the most important factor was experience of the specific surgical technique. All of the studies involved very small numbers of people and short periods of game play (between 2 and 5 weeks) and more subtle differences may not have been seen, differences that were seen may have been exaggerated and the effect of long term gaming (years) or gaming in childhood cannot be examined.

It must be noted however that there is much more to being a good surgeon than being good with your hands. Surgery, like all medical specialisms, is a team sport. Communication skills within that team, both in theatre and in follow up is vitally important to patient outcome. So is good clinical knowledge and judgement.

References
Lynch, J., Aughwane, P. & Hammond, T. M. (2010) Video games and surgical ability: a literature review. Journal of Surgical Education, 67 (3), 184-189. 

Milo Wars 2

Apologies for the lateness of this post. I have been snowed under with coursework recently.

The last post sparked outrage in the blogosphere heated debate amongst people that read and follow my blog. For many people this was an emotive issue, mispronouncing the name of a hot drink they have known and loved from childhood. At first among the people I had asked there seemed to be a north/south divide - the divide being the equator. Those in the north (from Ghana and Nigeria and the UK) seemed to favour 'Millow' pronounciation, and those from the south (from Zambia, Zimbawe, South Africa and New Zealand) favouring My-lo.

The poll results say it all, after all the shouting intensely emotional discussion the consensus is split cleanly down the middle, 11 votes for Millow and 11 for My-lo. (I have ignored the accusations of cheating here)

However, as other countries joined in the debate for the My-lo cause namely Jamaica and Sri Lanka, it seemed to turn into a West Africa (Millow) vs the rest of the world (Mylo) debate. (I personally think that we can handle those odds). I would like to thank my Sri Lankan friend Jehan, who did the YouTube research that gave me the videos below.

 

So I guess we will all have to make up our minds on this one.

(Hint hint - it's Millow)