Extreme Medicine: How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century by Kevin Fong

I've always been interested in science and medicine, but I admit that reading the Temperance Brennan series by Kathy Reichs helped draw my attention to this Goodreads giveaway for this book. The technical details about forensics in the series reawakened my desire for actual knowledge rather than my more casual interest of the past. So upon seeing Dr. Kevin Fong's book comparing and paralleling extreme medicine and exploration, I was intrigued.

Right away, I could feel Dr. Fong's passion for both medicine and exploration. The book is well organized and easily understandable. Dr. Fong is good at using analogies that make the body processes and affects on the body comprehensible. There are 9 different areas of focus, and all are kept to an easily readable length.

The first area of exploration is ice, we learn about Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated but crucial expedition to the South Pole and what happens to the body during hypothermia. Dr. Fong takes us through some of the technologies developed to allow us access to such temperature extremes so that we may learn more about our planet. And in the final segment about ice, we learn of the first time that doctors used hypothermia as a medical tool to save a live.

In the section on fire, we learn how World War I doctors and pilots provided the basis of modern day plastic surgery and why burn injuries are so dangerous.

In the heart section, I was shocked to learn that the heart was forbidden territory for a very long time, and that the field developed so quickly. There are many interesting personal stories in each section, that put a human face on these explorations into new medicine and environs, but if I share them here I'll be doing Dr. Fong's work for him.

Trauma and intensive care are closely associated with hospitals in my mind, and with each other. These two sections trace the development of each specialty. Our current procedures for triaging injuries in emergency situations comes from the personal tragedy of Dr. James K. Styner. He went on a crusade after his family was in a plane crash, and the local small town doctors didn't know how to prioritize cases. He had to function as his children's own emergency doctor while ignoring his own injuries. The inside look at the SARS epidemic and seeing how intensive care units were started was also interesting. I didn't know half of the side effects of polio, I guess my generation is lucky that way.

This passage from the water section gave me the shivers, the thing to remember is that Dr. Fong really did this. Imagine how terrifying it would be if it wasn't a training exercise.

"The water is rising fast now, already up to my waist, and every fiber of my body is telling me that I should unclip that harness and punch through that window. But to do that would be fatal. Free of the seat, I'd be swilled around the cabin by the inrush of water; finding my way to the exit and then locating the metal bar that jettisons the window would be impossible. If I'm to survive this, I have to wait. The water continues to bubble into the cabin. It's at my chest now, and the whole vehicle is overbalancing, skewed by the weight of the engines and rotors above, turning upside down in the darkness. The water is up to my chin as the cabin starts to rotate. These are my last few breaths, and I'm still strapped into my seat, resisting the urge to get the hell out of there."

The sections on Orbit and Mars, look at the medical challenges of space travel. Dr. Fong is an astrophysicist as well as a medical doctor, and he was lucky enough to get training at NASA on dealing with astronauts medical issues. I knew about the weakness they feel after an extended space stay, but knowing the reasons for it and how it's combated put a new perspective on things. Seeing the technologies that are being developed so that long term space travel can be achieved, along with the possible health issues resulting from a trip to Mars made me see why we haven't done it yet.

You would think that space travel would be as far as medicine could go, but it's not. The final frontier section looks at elderly medical care. It looks at how the body's systems slow down, and the delicate balance that doctors need to find. The judgement they need to decide whether it is more humane to treat the health issues or to let things run their course.
 
From the outside, progress often looks like it happens smoothly and is planned in advance. I like that Dr. Fong points out that leaps of progress are full of stops and starts and are often accidental. That we focus on the successes rather than the failures and the cost of getting to the successes.

Happy reading!

An Item on the Bucket List Accomplished, Well Almost

Bill Nye was in Minneapolis, at the Mall of America last Sunday. He did a science demonstration at the rotunda. This event was advertised for kids, but most of the audience was adults. There was standing room only on all four levels of the mall. The ground floor barely had enough room for two people to pass each other behind the crowd. The seats filled up by 9 am, and I thought that getting there at 11 was early enough. These crowd pictures were actually taken about an hour before it started, the upper levels were even fuller when the even actually started. It's so exciting to live somewhere where a science demonstration got such a huge turn out.

 Bill Nye was charming, funny, and rolled with the technical difficulties without even batting an eye. He even gave the crowd a bit of the old soft shoe while they worked out a glitch. The event was sponsored by Sophia.org, a website that is a resource for teachers and offers resources for flipping the classroom. Bill has created some videos for them, it's really not surprising that he'd team up with such a group as science education and awareness is a focus of his.

They did demonstrations of various scientific concepts like the power of air and momentum. I have to admit, that I was partial to them using a giant air cannon made out of a trash can to blow out a candle. Making one of these air cannons maybe the summer project around our house. The used a bicycle wheel to show how spinning objects don't fall, and Bill sat on a spinning office chair and let the wheel move the chair. There was a game of tug-o-war, where the two sides were pulling against a vacuum of air less than an inch thick. I think the crowd favorite was watching Bill Nye apply a sledgehammer to a cinder block that was lying atop a man's chest while he laid on a bed of nails.

 

It was a great experience, even though I didn't actually get to officially meet Bill. It was a crowd full of my tribe: the geeks, nerds, dorks. There were people dressed up in superhero costumes and handmade Viking helmets. Most everyone was very nice and considerate despite the crowded conditions. Maybe I was just having a fan-girl high. Even stores on the other side of the mall got into the spirit of the event.

I only have two regrets: 1) the demonstration only went until 2 instead of 3, and 2) Bill didn't stick around for autographs. So my bucket list item of meeting him wasn't quite met, but I did get to see a pen that was given to him by Neil Degrasse Tyson.

Some Thoughts on Science and Human Rights

P.Z. Myer's blog, Pharyngula is one of my favorite blogs. He is reasonable, intelligent, and has a sense of humor. He even allows his university students air their ideas on his blog, it doesn't even have to be directly related to their course work. His guest blogger today is Shastra, who discusses the relationship between science and human rights. This young person has some very interesting thoughts on the topic of how science and democracy are similar.

I heartily agree with what this young person had to say. Please have a read and leave your comments.

Mourn for a Man That Brought Science to a Generation

Don Herbert, aka Mr. Wizard, died yesterday in his home at 89. I fondly remember his show. Another great person to come out of Minnesota. I will miss you Mr. Wizard, thanks for the knowledge and entertainment. At least we still have Bill Nye to carry on the tradition of getting kids to love science.